Thomasin Crowley, Global Director of APAC at WiredScore
WiredScore defines and certifies digital connectivity and smart technology in homes and offices globally. Founded in New York in 2013, WiredScore claims to have certified more than 800 million square feet of commercial and residential space, impacting more than eight million people across 37 markets.
Last year, the company expanded into Asia by opening its regional headquarters in Singapore. In late March this year, it opened an office in Thailand. So far, WiredScore has raised US$28 million across four rounds from Bessemer Venture Partners, Fifth Wall Ventures, Sterling VC, Beringea, Cushman & Wakefield, Crow Holdings, and Taronga Ventures, among others. This includes a US$15 million Series B funding in 2022.
e27 recently caught up with Thomasin Crowley, Global Director of APAC at WiredScore, to learn how the company has been addressing different challenges in the market, including the current economic slowdown.
Excerpts:
How have the past 2-3 years been for WiredScore from a business growth perspective?
WiredScore’s mission is to make the world’s buildings smarter and better connected. In line with this, we’ve continued to set the standard for technology in the built world in the past 2-3 years by assessing and improving global digital connectivity and smart capabilities in buildings through our WiredScore and SmartScore certifications.
As part of our global expansion plan, we are thrilled to have launched in Asia with the opening of our Singapore office in March 2022, our first office in Asia Pacific (APAC), which also serves as our regional headquarters. Since then, we’ve expanded our offerings to Hong Kong and, most recently, Thailand, as we aim to bring integrity and learnings from a global perspective to facilitate and advocate for the region’s transition towards a first-class, smart built environment.
To date, we have worked with over 40 owners and developers across nearly 150 buildings in APAC, certifying more than 60 million square feet (5.5 million square meters) of space.
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Some of the leading landlords and developments in Asia that we’ve been partnering with include:
- Singapore: AEW, Frasers Property, IOI Properties, Keppel REIT, Lendlease, PAG, and Shaw Towers Realty,
- Hong Kong: Swire Properties, Henderson Land Group, Kerry Properties, Nan Fung Group, Sun Hung Kai Properties, Sino Group and Empire Group
- Thailand: APAC Land, Frasers Property (Thailand), Magnolia Quality Development Corporation (MQDC), Muang Thai Life Assurance, One Bangkok, and Siam Motors
Across the globe, more than 800 million square feet of commercial and residential space have been committed to WiredScore certification, impacting more than 8 million people across 37 markets.
How does the current global economic slowdown affect your business, and what steps have you taken to mitigate any negative impacts? Have you noticed any changes in customer behaviour or demand, and how have you responded?
With our strong business fundamentals, a proven track record across North America and Europe, and a robust growing footprint across APAC, WiredScore empowers building owners to combat fluctuating social, economic and climate challenges head-on, leveraging technology implementation. We aim to expand widespread access to our offerings to encourage and foster greater connectivity, reduce carbon emissions, increase resilience against cyber threats, and enhance the health and well-being of building users worldwide, all via the power of technology in the spaces we occupy.
How has your financial strategy changed in light of the current market conditions, and what measures have you taken to ensure long-term sustainability?
Given the current market conditions, we have carefully managed our financial strategy by selectively investing in priority areas that best support our long-term goals. We are focused on delivering more impact by continuing to bring industry-enhancing products to market and empowering people and places through technology. WiredScore, as a growing team, will be in a prime position to deliver new tools and features continuously that empower landlords and occupiers of WiredScore- and SmartScore-certified buildings to thrive.
Have you adjusted your growth projections or other key performance indicators in light of the current economic climate?
We regularly review our growth projections to identify potential gaps for improvement to achieve results that are more closely aligned with our targets.
We registered good growth in the past year as we expanded our global presence from 24 markets to 37 markets. Besides opening our APAC headquarters in Singapore and subsequent launches in Hong Kong and Thailand, another key milestone for us in 2022 was our launch in the Middle East, where we work with key players in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, among others.
Can you speak of any market opportunities that have emerged due to the economic downturn and how your company is capitalising on those opportunities?
Amidst a global recession, we’re already witnessing a phenomenon the premium tier of office space tends to hold its value better, underpinned by an ongoing flight to quality by occupiers, which bolsters demand for prime spaces. Developers and occupiers should come to a unanimous realisation that smart technology is almost a defining characteristic of a prime office – an essential rather than a luxury.
This presents significant opportunities for retrofitting real estate that is future-proofed for generations to come, a part in which WiredScore could play an integral role.
One prime example is Keppel Land, which introduced emerging technologies to Keppel Bay Tower (a commercial property owned by Keppel REIT) to transform the 20-year-old building into Singapore’s first BCA Green Mark Platinum (Zero Energy) commercial building. Keppel has worked with WiredScore to benchmark Keppel Bay Tower’s digital connectivity and smart building capabilities, turned it into a manifestation of Keppel Land’s Sustainable Urban Renewal capabilities, and achieved impressive WiredScore and SmartScore recognitions.
Having grappled with waves of economic fluctuations, sustainability is one area that shows no signs of diminishing and offers real estate leaders the needed flexibility and resilience to prepare for potential future shocks. As such, it becomes a priority to secure ESG+R (Resilience) against future change, ensure we create spaces that are resilient to external challenges, and mitigate any risk factor of our investments.
The urge to build best-in-class office space and portfolio resilience has posed a significant opportunity for office landlords to embrace technology and entice global occupiers, with WiredScore’s expertise as a stepping stone. Without ESG+R commitment in place, technological obsolescence will gradually become a price that investors find exorbitant to afford, and there will be a point when we are left with stranded, un-leasable, unsellable and, ultimately, unusable assets.
How does WiredScore balance the need for short-term financial stability with the long-term goals of your business?
Focus is something we’ve had to hone as we’ve developed as a company. While we will always invest for longer-term goals, we won’t invest our time and resources in everything. Instead, we’ll look at initiatives with the highest chance of succeeding. This isn’t just a financial challenge but an operational one too.
We want to inspire deep focus across our business, and while that means turning down exciting opportunities in the short term, this is all with the view to having more capacity in the future for others.
Can you discuss your plans for diversifying your revenue streams or expanding into new markets in light of the current economic climate?
Since establishing a footprint in APAC just over a year ago, we are excited to deepen our regional roots. We’ve seen how maintaining momentum in our other, more established markets has enabled us to see the impact of empowering people and spaces through technology.
How have you maintained a strong company culture and motivated your team during these challenging times?
We strongly believe that nurturing and sustaining a healthy workplace culture is key to maintaining engagement within the firm. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we reassessed our overall employee engagement strategy. We introduced several initiatives to drive morale and energise our team members as we adopted a remote working model. Since then, we’ve sustained our commitment to being a culture-driven company and have continued to prioritise our employees’ well-being.
Some of our initiatives include ‘Donuts’, a weekly, half-hour, casual chat with a randomly selected colleague to encourage people to stay in touch and get to know colleagues from our offices globally and a dedicated annual well-being budget.
Do we see an end to the ‘raise-cash-burn-cash’ growth model and the emergence of the ‘make profits, sustain & grow’ model?
We are seeing slight shifts in the industry, with businesses now focusing more on achieving a positive cash-flow milestone rather than pushing unsustainable growth and scale. Looking at funding in 2021, for example, it was all about growth. Now, the tune has changed, and investors care more about profitability. There is a danger in following trends of what investors want rather than the right strategy for the individual business.
For example, we didn’t raise our first round of funding until five years after we launched, which was the right thing for us and our business.
WiredScore has always grown with operational effectiveness at the core; this will continue to be our approach for as long as it works for us.
What challenges does a post-Series B startup like WiredScore face compared to an early-growth-stage startup?
Post-Series B startups like WiredScore tend to have a wider team with members dispersed across several markets worldwide, compared to early-stage startups that may have just established their footprints in a single or a few markets.
For example, we have members working in the US, the UK, Singapore and Australia. Therefore, startups with global operations must establish the right structure to support their growing team, network and objectives and maintain consistency and alignment across operations while being flexible enough to tailor their products and offerings to the local markets. The executive leadership team would also need to broaden their perspective and focus on making strategic decisions that impact the firm.
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Another challenge companies may face is repeating success. Early adopters help you to figure out a product market fit and turn this into a scalable playbook. Replicating this with later adopters with a more established product isn’t always as straightforward.
What learnings can early or growth-stage companies make from growth-stage/late-stage companies?
Later-stage startups have experienced the journey that early-stage startups are bound to go through. This is especially so in the case of fundraising. What we’ve learned and believe is the importance of finding the right investor-company fit when it comes to fundraising for early-stage companies.
Thousands of venture capitalists are out in the market looking for companies to invest in, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are the right people for the firm. Early-stage companies must find the right strategic investor with relevant expertise to guide the firm’s growth journey and aligned values.
WiredScore has been fortunate to work with lead investors who are enthusiastic about our real estate space and have their values aligned with ours. Our strategic investors have generously devoted capital and expertise to helping us embark on an ambitious growth journey.
How is the mindset and cultural shift happening internally since we are in a high-interest rate environment and funding isn’t going to be as easy as before?
Despite the challenging environment, WiredScore remains committed to doubling down on its solid business fundamentals. The company stands in a unique position to make material contributions to the future success of the real estate industry as it navigates some of the most pressing challenges it has ever seen, including climate change, health and well-being and widespread access to connectivity. We are confident that our laser-focused approach to championing technology as a lever for greater transparency will enable a faster optimisation of the buildings that house our day-to-day lives.
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