HqO Expands Footprint in Dallas, Hires Former JLL VP

DALLAS—Boston-based HqO has expanded its national footprint with the opening of an office in Dallas. The office will be led by industry veteran Clay Curlee who has been hired to grow the company’s presence across Texas and throughout the Southwest, GlobeSt.com learns in this exclusive.

For HqO, this is the latest in a series of announcements that reflect the tenant experience platform’s rapid growth and market penetration. In December 2019, HqO raised $34.25 million in Series B financing to bolster its technology and ramp up business development efforts. During the course of the past several months, HqO has also opened new offices in New York City, London and Paris to fuel its growth.

Since launching in 2018, HqO has amassed a strong client base in Texas, where its technology has been deployed across a combined 4 million square feet of office space in properties owned by industry heavyweights.

“We’re very bullish on the Texas market. With four major cities and a robust economy, Texas boasts one of the largest office markets in the US, and the value our technology can bring to both landlords and tenants is extremely significant,” said Chase Garbarino, HqO CEO and co-founder. “We developed HqO as a true platform that offers a seamless experience to engage with all of a building’s tenant-facing technology, amenities and conveniences, which can increase productivity for major office tenants by removing much of their day-to-day hassle.”

The interoperability of the HqO platform means that all of a building’s tenant-facing technology, amenities and conveniences are funneled into a single platform that delivers a unified brand experience for building occupants. In one place, tenants can connect with digital access credentials, local food and wellness options, shared conference room and service booking, and real-time tracking of shuttle services and public transportation. As a central connection point of aggregated data, HqO enables owners to identify in real time how building technology and amenities are creating value and improving overall tenant retention, engagement and satisfaction. Additionally, the platform is the landlord’s unifying technology layer for connecting with and managing amenities via standardized APIs, resulting in a seamless experience for tenants in a single building or across a portfolio.

As account director, Curlee will be responsible for advancing HqO’s market share in the Southwest region by focusing on strategic accounts and establishing teams to support new and existing clients.

“As we continue our push into Texas, we’ll be focusing our growth strategy on the Texas Triangle, which includes the markets of Dallas, Houston and Austin/San Antonio. The companies within these cities are extremely diverse tech, finance and energy businesses that can benefit greatly from technology that digitally connects tenants to building services,” Curlee said. “One of the major benefits of HqO is its ability to help landlords attract tenants by creating a workplace experience that allows them to appeal to and retain employees, which is a particularly strong value proposition in today’s economy. Our technology will allow owners with a strong presence in Texas markets to continue to grow their footprints throughout the state.”

Curlee brings nearly 10 years of commercial real estate experience to HqO. In his most recent roles, he specialized in workplace strategy as a vice president at JLL and senior manager of workplace technology at CBRE.

In addition to powering 72 million square feet of office space, HqO has now raised $53 million of venture capital funding. The platform has been deployed by office landlords including Blackstone’s EQ Office, Jamestown, DivcoWest and National Development. HqO’s technology is currently used in properties in more than a dozen markets in the United States and United Kingdom, including the 4.6-million-square-foot Willis Tower in Chicago, the second-tallest building in North America.