In this episode, Dave’s guest is Chase Garbarino, Co-Founder and CEO of HQO (www.hqo.co), a Boston-based operating system and tenant experience platform for commercial office buildings.
Like every other sector of the global innovation economy, commercial real estate is also facing disruption by digital technology, elevated customer expectations and entrepreneurs with startups that create new opportunities. Today, tenant experience technology plays a bigger role than ever before, helping transform properties from a physical space into communities that offer real value to the workforce.
HQO is building technology to create real-world experiences and more meaningful human connections. Within the built environment, the company focuses on the places where people work, within a belief that economic success and opportunity are core drivers of the successful “live, work, play” value proposition that many communities strive for. When communities work well and prosper economically, people usually live and play far better.
HQO recently closed a major Series C funding round of $60m, not long after closing their $35m Series B for a total $107m – all raised around a global pandemic. And shortly after recording, HQO announced that it acquired Office App (www.getofficeapp.com), the leading European tenant and employee engagement platform, valuing HQO at over $500m and making it one of the most significant proptech companies in the world.
Chase has been a leader of Boston’s Innovation Economy for the past 10+ years – first leading the creation of AmericanInno, a digital media and events business targeted at helping bolster the innovation economies of American cities. Bostinno (www.bostinno.com), a new media organization that chronicled Boston’s exploding startup and VC scene in a way that legacy media couldn’t. After selling to Advanced Publications in 2015, he started on a new adventure, with a company that has pivoted through multiple incarnations to become HQO. With a strong interest in how technology connects people back to the real world around them, the HQO team launched HqO in 2018 and began developing technology that connects people back to their local community and the people around them in a more impactful way.
