Smart lock maker Latch teams with real estate firm to go public via SPAC

This week, Latch is the newest company to take part in the SPAC parade. The New York-based company, founded in 2014, came out of the hiding place two years later and introduced a smart lock system. However, like many companies best known for hardware solutions, Latch also provides a connected security software platform for residential owners.

Thanks to a merger with the blank check company TS Innovation Acquisitions Corp. go public. Tishman Speyer Properties makes strategic sense here for the partners. The New York-based commercial real estate company is a natural partner for a company whose technology is currently used exclusively in residential buildings.

“With a standard IPO, you will be taken from all banks to all major investors,” Luke Schoenfelder, founder and CEO of Latch, told TechCrunch. “We felt there was an opportunity here to achieve an additional level of strategic partnership and an additional level of product expansion that was part of the process. Through this partnership, our ability to get into Europe and into commercial offices is now greatly accelerated.

The number of SPAC deals has grown significantly over the past few months, including recent examples like Taboola. Latch has raised $ 152 million to date, according to Crunchbase. And the company has seen solid growth over the past year – not every hardware or hardware neighbor company can say something about the pandemic.

As my colleague Alex stated today at Extra Crunch: “Thanks to a quick match, Latch was able to post a turnover of 50.5% from 2019 to 2020. Booked software revenue increased 37.1%, while booked hardware revenue increased over 70% over the same period. ”

“We have been a customer and investor in Latch for years,” said Rob Speyer, President and CEO of Tishman Speyer, to TechCrunch. “Our customers – the people who live in our buildings – love the Latch product. So we’ve rolled it out across our entire residential portfolio […] I hope we can act as both a thought partner and a product incubator for them. “

The story goes on

While the company plans to expand into commercial offices, residential homes have been a nice industry so far – meaning the company doesn’t have to compete as directly in the crowded smart home lock category. Among other things, competing against each other is likely to be a net positive result, says Amazon. That the company has built partners in real estate firms like Tishman Speyer is also positive.

According to Schönfelder, the company is striving for partnerships such as test benches for its technology. “Our products have been in use in the multi-family sector for many years. The usage patterns in trading offices will differ slightly. We think we know how different they will be, but getting them working and watching how they interact with products in the wild will be very important. “

The deal valued Latch at $ 1.56 billion and is expected to close in the second quarter.