Infamous WeWork Co-Founder Starts New Real Estate Venture With 'Biggest Check' This VC Firm Has Written

Venture capital behemoth Andreessen Horowitz revealed on Monday that it would invest in Adam Neumann's residential real estate firm Flow, supporting the WeWork Inc WE co-founder following a failed IPO in 2019 that resulted in thousands of layoffs.

What happened: Marc Andreessen, co-founder and managing partner of the venture capital firm, revealed the investment in a blog post. The blog withheld the financial details of the investment, but the New York Times reported that the VC fund contributed $350 million to Flow, making it Andreessen Horowitz's largest check ever.

The investment puts Flow’s valuation over $1 billion.

Flow is unconnected to Neumann's crypto business, Flowcarbon, for which Andreessen Horowitz led in a $70 million fundraising round in May.

Neumann has already made over 3,000 apartment purchases in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Atlanta, and Nashville in preparation for the build out of the new apartment brand, which is set to debut in 2023. Flow seeks to disrupt the rental housing market through the development of a branded product with dependable service and community features.

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“Shelter is one of our most basic needs,” the blog post reads. “In a world where limited access to home ownership continues to be a driving force behind inequality and anxiety, giving renters a sense of security, community, and genuine ownership has transformative power for our society.”

Why it matters: Neumann stepped down as WeWork's CEO and gave up majority voting power of the business in 2019 following a plunge in the company’s valuation ahead of its IPO.

WeWork ultimately went public last year through a merger with special purpose acquisition company BowX Acquistion Corp in a deal that valued the startup at $9 billion, down from $47 billion in 2019.

Neumann’s WeWork story was documented on Walt Disney Co’s DIS streaming service, Hulu, in a 2021 documentary titled “WeWork: or The Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn.”

Photo: Courtesy of Fortune Brainstorm TECH on flickr