‘New normal’ – Hubble raises £2m for hybrid office platform

Flexible office marketplace Hubble has hit £10m in total funding after a £2m Pi Labs-led top-up funding round.

Pi Labs was joined by existing backers JLL Spark and Starwood Capital. JLL Spark had previously led a £4m investment into Hubble as its first European investment.

The investment is the second in weeks for a UK-based flexible office marketplace after Desana secured $4m from PropTech1 Ventures.

Based in London, Hubble said that it saw a 95% dip in office enquiries when the pandemic hit last March, but that demand is back up to 80% of pre-Covid levels as of June 2021.

With occupiers expecting more flexibility, Hubble has developed products to tap into offices going through “the biggest change in a generation” over the coming years. The company said it expects hybrid working to soon become “the new normal”.

Hubble’s four products are:

• Hubble Workplace Strategy Tool – this enables businesses to figure out the right combination of office and remote work for their team
• Hubble HQ – a tool to find new office space
• Hubble Pass – access to a global network of on-demand workspaces
• Hubble Perks – a way to send remote work perks to employees

Hubble HQ covers more than 5,000 office spaces across the UK, while Hubble Pass is available in 12 countries with 200 spaces (growing by 30 spaces a month, Hubble said).

Tushar Agarwal, CEO and co-founder of Hubble, said: “The last 14 months have completely transformed the relationship between work and the workplace. Office space is a $22tn asset class, which will see its biggest change in a generation in the next five years. Hybrid working will become the new normal, as employers and employees seek to find the right balance between office and remote working.

“We’re proud to have been continuously backed by the biggest proptech investors in the world to make hybrid working easy and accessible to businesses of all shapes and sizes.”

Hugo Silva, investment manager at PiLabs, said: “We’re seeing a huge shift in the future of work. Businesses want to be able to transition to a hybrid working model, but this is new and difficult for many.

“We’ve been seriously impressed with Hubble’s ability to deeply understand a new customer problem and use their foundation as pioneers in the flexible office market, to build a solution that makes hybrid working easy.”