- WeWork, the popular co-working startup, is only one of the companies under The We Company business umbrella.
- Reports indicate that the We Company could publicly file its IPO paperwork as early as this week.
- Originally called WeWork, the startup rebranded under the new name The We Company at the start of 2019 in order to make room for spin-off businesses WeLive, WeGrow, and Rise by We.
- These are the companies under the We Company umbrella, as well as some of the other areas that the company has hinted at expanding into.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
The company that operates WeWork’s cache of millennial-attracting co-working spaces is set to publicly file its IPO paperwork as soon as this week.
The We Company, last valued at $47 billion, confidentially filed to go public in April. Its IPO is highly anticipated by high-stake investors like SoftBank and others in the tech industry curious to see the company’s financials and its plan to turn the money-losing business into a sustainable and profitable enterprise.
Under CEO Adam Neumann, the We Company has invested in a bizarre range of projects, from turmeric coffee creamer to wave pools. The company itself rebranded — from WeWork to We Company — in January so it could more easily organize and promote its offerings beyond shared office space.
These are the businesses under The We Company umbrella:
WeWork: "To create a world where people work to make a life, not just a living."
Reuters
WeWork provides co-working desk space in commercial buildings in more than 120 cities in nearly 40 countries. Available to businesses and individual workers, WeWork spaces are used by major companies around the world (including Business Insider in San Francisco). WeWork is reportedly planning to soon buy its own buildings instead of subleasing space from other people’s buildings.
WeWork’s success has spawned many other coworking companies, from female-oriented startup The Wing to spiritual wellness-centric business The Assemblage.
WeLive: "To build a world where no one feels alone."
Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider
WeLive runs group-living spaces, also dubbed "hacker houses" or "communes," that are home to more than a dozen millennial residents that share communal bathrooms and kitchens for cheap rent.
Since 2016, WeLive has run two group-living spaces in New York City (on Wall Street) and Arlington, Virginia’s Crystal City — the neighborhood home to Amazon’s new HQ2 headquarters.
They’re similar to the incubators on HBO’s "Silicon Valley" or the place that Mark Zuckerberg housed the earliest Facebook employees in the company’s early days. They’re tailor-made for students and startup founders who want to live among the high-rent cities of New York and Silicon Valley, but need somewhere they can afford.
The dorm room-like residences also offer perks and activities like morning yoga and happy hours that put that "community feel" into the WeLive spaces. Residents have the option to rent rooms for anywhere from a few nights to a few months at a time.
WeGrow: "To unleash every human’s superpowers."
WeWork
WeGrow is in charge of running elementary-level "micro-schools" that have a focus on entrepreneurship, and operate out of WeWork spaces. Since announcing its plans for WeGrow schools in 2017, only one school is in operation, located in WeWork’s Chelsea neighborhood.
The WeGrow school is designed to be incredibly different than a traditional elementary school. At the New York location, the school curriculum includes an indoor classroom with a tree house and vertical farm; one day a week spent at a farm upstate to harvest crops; and mentorship programming and master classes from WeWork adults.
The admission process into WeGrow schools is similar to that of a private school, complete with an application and parent interview. School-year admission ranges from $22,000 for two-year-olds, to $42,000 for children ages five to 11.
At the time of the school’s launch, a We Company representative told Fast Company that WeGrow could transition to become a non-profit "at some point in the future."
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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Source: Business Insider – pleskin@businessinsider.com (Paige Leskin)