Published : 6 years ago, on 16/06/2018

Breather, a leading global provider of flexible workspace, announces that it has raised approximately $60 million in equity including la Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (“la Caisse”) and joined by several other global firms including Temasek and Ascendas-Singbridge.

Short-term office rental services make up a multi-billion-dollar industry that provides monthly to hourly workspace rental options, including fully furnished offices, conference and meeting rooms. All types of companies, from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, are turning toward the commercial real estate industry for flexible workspaces to meet their changing operating needs and to reduce costs. The segment in which Breather operates, which focuses on private, fully furnished offices and conference rooms, accounts for 71% of the industry.

Within the last five years, Breather has demonstrated its strong capacity to succeed in the workspace rentals sector by scaling to 10 cities globally. Today, the company is notably present in New York City, San Francisco, Toronto, and London.

“We work with businesses of every size—from growing startups to leading enterprise organizations—to provide space solutions that scale to their needs,” said Julien Smith, founder and CEO of Breather. “Traditional real estate agreements can lead to large fixed costs and teams getting locked into a space that they might soon outgrow. Breather enables businesses to access the space they need when they need it, with the freedom to scale usage up or down when they want to. We’re excited to work with our new partners to bring that freedom to even more businesses worldwide.”

Investing in Breather allows la Caisse to get ahead of a new real estate trend with one of its top players.

“Breather is a young, innovative and fast-growing company with great potential on the international scene.” states Christian Dubé, Executive Vice-president, Québec, at la Caisse. Through its unique and innovative business model, Breather has demonstrated a unique capacity to lead within a rapidly transforming industry with a focus on technology and an ongoing focus to optimize yield management through machine learning.

Founded in 2013, Breather operates close to 500 spaces globally. To date, the company has raised nearly CAD $150 million from partners including Menlo Ventures, Valar Ventures, RRE Ventures, Slow Ventures and Real Ventures.