The future of Home just got hotter: Belong’s largest shareholder, A16Z, backs Adam Neumann’s Flow

Marc Andreessen announced today via the a16z blog the firm has invested $350 million in WeWork founder Adam Neumann’s residential real estate company, ‘Flow.’

Why it matters: The investment reflects investor interest in residential real estate market disruptors.

• a16z is Belong’s largest shareholder. Belong and Flow share similar missions, both expressing a desire to make it easier for real people to participate in homeownership.
  
  
• In the last ten years, the percentage of homes owned by hedge funds has increased dramatically (nearly doubling). Inventory is short and housing prices are higher than ever. This is driving investor interest in disruptive solutions to the global housing crisis.
  
  

How Belong is different: Though we exist to fight similar systemic issues, Belong is focused on alternative solutions to the housing crisis:

• We do not own homes. Rather, we offer vertically integrated home management platform for homeowners so they never have to be a landlord, and can still have their home taken care of by high-quality residents and our in-home maintenance team.
  

• We focus on homes owned by individuals and small investors. Belong’s version of the housing market is one where homes are in the hands of regular people. While Flow seeks to purchase and manage multi-family (apartment) homes in an end-to-end manner, Belong primarily works with homeowners that own and invest in single-family homes.
  
  
• We help renters become owners. With each on-time rent payment, Belong residents save toward home ownership. We believe addressing the housing crisis requires addressing both sides of home ownership. This is how we do our part. 

The big picture: Investors (including Belong’s shareholders) are focusing on residential real estate disruptors because the problems caused by this housing crisis will require multiple concurrent solutions. Flow and Belong will tackle these problems differently, but we share a vision for the future of Home.