Real estate tech company Porch adds five new directors to board ahead of public stock listing

Seattle-based Porch today named five directors that will join the company’s board when it goes public later this year.

The real estate technology venture and home improvement marketplace announced plans in July to become publicly traded through a merger that values the Seattle company at $523 million. Porch will combine with PropTech Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC.

The board members will join on Porch’s first day of public trading. They include:

Javier Saade, founder and managing partner of Impact Master Holdings; venture partner at Fenway Summer Ventures; former associate administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration.Chris Terrill, former CEO of HomeAdvisor and Angie’s List; board member of Realogy Holdings Corp. and Infogroup.Regi Vengalil, CFO of Egencia (Expedia’s corporate travel division); former global head of corporate development and strategy at Expedia Group. He will serve as the chair of Porch’s M&A committee.Margaret Whelan, founder and CEO of Whelan Advisory. Her board experience includes time at PropTech Acquisition Corp, Mattamy Homes, John Burns Real Estate Consulting, Housing Innovation Alliance and TopBuild.Tom Hennessy, chairman, co-CEO, and president of PropTech Acquisition Corp; managing partner of Hennessy Capital Real Estate Strategies. He will serve as the chair of Porch’s compensation committee.

Dennie Haydon, Juan Sabater and Michael Baldwin will step down from the board as part of the transition.

The combined company, based in Seattle, will operate under the Porch name and trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “PRCH” after the expected completion of the deal in the fourth quarter. Porch co-founder Matt Ehrlichman will remain as CEO and chairman.

Los Angeles-based PropTech went public in November in a $172.5 million initial public offering. SPACs, or blank-check companies, have been surging in popularity as an alternative means for companies to go public, and lucrative transactions for Wall Street banks. SPACs have played a role in 35% of U.S. IPO filings so far this year, according to a recent report by Silicon Valley Bank. Axios reported Wednesday that around half of this year’s 42 announced SPAC deals are for companies that would have attempted an IPO in 2021.

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Looking at long road ahead on climate change, Bill Gates champions electric vehicles, alternative fuels

(GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser)

With fewer people on the move during the pandemic, Bill Gates is taking the time to think about better ways to get around when we can again. Specifically, the Microsoft co-founder is sharing his thoughts on electric vehicles and alternative fuels that could help address a crisis beyond COVID: climate change.

In a new GatesNotes blog post, Gates said we’ve made great progress on electric vehicles. Batteries are getting cheaper and increased competition has created more choices for consumers. But even if the short-haul travel option further develops into a long-haul answer, EVs “will probably never be a practical solution for things like 18-wheelers, cargo ships, and passenger jets.”

Gates said this is where cheap alternative fuels come in, such as biofuels, which many people have heard of, and electrofuels, a very expensive option that uses electricity to combine the hydrogen molecules in water with the carbon in carbon dioxide, creating a liquid fuel that works in existing engines.

“Zeroing out all transportation emissions is going to require massive breakthroughs in these two areas,” Gates wrote, adding that while he’s inspired by progress made so far, “to prevent the worst effects of climate change, we need to get to zero net greenhouse gas emissions in every sector of the economy within 50 years.”

The billionaire philanthropist’s concerns mirror those of the company he founded. Microsoft pledged in January to become carbon negative by 2030 and remove more carbon than the company has put into the atmosphere since it launched by 2050. And Amazon for its part has set ambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, establishing a Climate Pledge aimed at addressing its vast carbon footprint.

Read his post for further insight.

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Amazon releases CEO Jeff Bezos’ opening statement ahead of landmark antitrust hearing

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in June 2019. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos will point to the “strikingly large and extraordinarily competitive” global retail market in his opening statement to a U.S. House antitrust subcommittee on Wednesday, making the case that the tech giant he founded as a modest online bookseller more than two decades ago is but a bit player in the larger world of commerce.

“Every day, Amazon competes against large, established players like Target, Costco, Kroger, and, of course, Walmart — a company more than twice Amazon’s size,” Bezos will say, according to a copy of his prepared remarks released by the company Tuesday afternoon. “And while we have always focused on producing a great customer experience for retail sales done primarily online, sales initiated online are now an even larger growth area for other stores.”

It remains to be seen whether Amazon can persuade lawmakers to accept its definition of the market, given its status as one of the world’s most valuable companies, led by the globe’s richest person. But the opening statement stakes a clear position on the critical question of whether Amazon has attained enough market power to warrant an antitrust crackdown.

“Amazon accounts for less than 1% of the $25 trillion global retail market and less than 4% of retail in the U.S.,” Bezos will say, according to the prepared remarks. “Unlike industries that are winner-take-all, there’s room in retail for many winners.”

On a key issue at the heart of the inquiry, the company will tout the benefits of its online marketplace for third-party sellers. Bezos’ opening statement contrasts sharply with the image of the company that has emerged from reports, most notably an investigation by the Wall Street Journal, that the company has leveraged proprietary data to compete unfairly with those sellers.

“We didn’t have to invite third-party sellers into the store. We could have kept this valuable real estate for ourselves,” Bezos says in the statement. “But we committed to the idea that over the long term it would increase selection for customers, and that more satisfied customers would be great for both third-party sellers and for Amazon. And that’s what happened.”

Toward the end of the statement, Bezos repeats a sentiment that he has expressed in the past, dating back to the company’s 2018 shareholder meeting: “Let me close by saying that I believe Amazon should be scrutinized. We should scrutinize all large institutions, whether they’re companies, government agencies, or non-profits. Our responsibility is to make sure we pass such scrutiny with flying colors.”

Bezos is set to testify via video conference Wednesday in addition to Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google/Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Read the full text of Bezos’ prepared remarks.

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Amazon releases CEO Jeff Bezos’ opening statement ahead of landmark antitrust hearing

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in June 2019. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos will point to the “strikingly large and extraordinarily competitive” global retail market in his opening statement to a U.S. House antitrust subcommittee on Wednesday, making the case that the tech giant he founded as a modest online bookseller more than two decades ago is but a bit player in the larger world of commerce.

“Every day, Amazon competes against large, established players like Target, Costco, Kroger, and, of course, Walmart — a company more than twice Amazon’s size,” Bezos will say, according to a copy of his prepared remarks released by the company Tuesday afternoon. “And while we have always focused on producing a great customer experience for retail sales done primarily online, sales initiated online are now an even larger growth area for other stores.”

It remains to be seen whether Amazon can persuade lawmakers to accept its definition of the market, given its status as one of the world’s most valuable companies, led by the globe’s richest person. But the opening statement stakes a clear position on the critical question of whether Amazon has attained enough market power to warrant an antitrust crackdown.

“Amazon accounts for less than 1% of the $25 trillion global retail market and less than 4% of retail in the U.S.,” Bezos will say, according to the prepared remarks. “Unlike industries that are winner-take-all, there’s room in retail for many winners.”

On a key issue at the heart of the inquiry, the company will tout the benefits of its online marketplace for third-party sellers. Bezos’ opening statement contrasts sharply with the image of the company that has emerged from reports, most notably an investigation by the Wall Street Journal, that the company has leveraged proprietary data to compete unfairly with those sellers.

“We didn’t have to invite third-party sellers into the store. We could have kept this valuable real estate for ourselves,” Bezos says in the statement. “But we committed to the idea that over the long term it would increase selection for customers, and that more satisfied customers would be great for both third-party sellers and for Amazon. And that’s what happened.”

Toward the end of the statement, Bezos repeats a sentiment that he has expressed in the past, dating back to the company’s 2018 shareholder meeting: “Let me close by saying that I believe Amazon should be scrutinized. We should scrutinize all large institutions, whether they’re companies, government agencies, or non-profits. Our responsibility is to make sure we pass such scrutiny with flying colors.”

Bezos is set to testify via video conference Wednesday in addition to Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google/Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Read the full text of Bezos’ prepared remarks.

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Adaptive Biotech pushes ahead with new Seattle HQ, showing strength of life sciences industry

Chad Robins, CEO of Adaptive Biotechnologies, speaks at the site of the company’s future corporate headquarters in Seattle, standing in front of the final piece of structural steel before it’s put into place. (Stephen Brashear/AP Images for Adaptive Biotechnologies)

Topping-off ceremonies, in which workers place the last piece of structural steel for new building, have become run-of-the-mill over the past decade in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood. But the recent event held by Adaptive Biotechnologies carried extra symbolic significance, due to the events swirling around it.

The pandemic has emptied large swaths of the surrounding neighborhood, including Amazon’s Seattle headquarters. (Construction workers and officials wore masks during the ceremony.) Meanwhile, new questions are emerging about the long-term role of Seattle and other traditional tech hubs in the innovation economy.

But biotech in Seattle “is just thriving right now,” said Chad Robins, the Adaptive Biotechnologies CEO, as he made his way to the ceremony at the new building, being developed by Alexandria Real Estate Equities at 1165 Eastlake Avenue E.

Part of the reason, he said, is the intersection of biotech and technology in the city.

Adaptive, which spun out of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, works closely with Microsoft as part of its long-term quest to diagnose multiple diseases from a single blood test. Microsoft and Adaptive have been working in recent months to develop a new diagnostic test for COVID-19 as an extension of their partnership.

The future home of Adaptive Biotechnologies at 1165 Eastlake Avenue E. in Seattle. (Alexandria Real Estate Equities Rendering.)

“The convergence of biotechnology and technology in this city is a phenomenal aspect of what’s available to us,” Robins said.

In a recent report on life sciences hubs, real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield cited Adaptive’s partnership with Microsoft as an example of “a growing alliance between life sciences and tech companies” that “has set Seattle apart as an emerging hub.”

Adaptive is also partnering with Amgen to develop a new drug to treat and prevent COVID-19, using Adaptive’s system for sequencing the human immune system.

In recent years, demand has been high for a limited amount of lab and suitable office space for biotech companies in the city. Vacancy rates for lab space in Seattle fell below 3% earlier this year, according to the Cushman & Wakefield report, vs. more than 7.1% in 12 key markets covered in the report.

Adaptive announced its 100,000-square-foot lease of the facility in the fall of 2019, and plans to move in after the building is completed in about a year. The new facility gave Adaptive an opportunity to rethink its lab space to accommodate the needs of its current scientific workflows and processes, Robins said.

Adaptive Biotechnologies Chief Scientific Officer Harlan Robins signs the final beam during a “topping off” ceremony at the company’s future headquarters on Thursday, 23, 2020 in Seattle. (Stephen Brashear/AP Images for Adaptive Biotechnologies)

The building will also serve as Adaptive’s new headquarters, tripling its footprint in the city. It’s about a six-minute walk from Adaptive’s current space at 1551 Eastlake Ave. in Seattle, where the company plans to retain its presence.

Robins said the new building “is just the next, natural phase of growth for us and our immune-driven medicine platform.”

Adaptive has grown by more than 200 people over the past year, with more than 500 employees overall. Its employees who are able to do their jobs from home are working remotely, and the company says it has been maintaining strict safety protocols for researchers and others who need to work in its labs.

The company is not the only key member of the life sciences sector expanding in the city. Despite recent cutbacks, Fred Hutch is proceeding with plans to move into about 275 scientists and staff into 106,000-square feet in the renovated Seattle Steam Plant, the former home of biotech company Zymogenetics. The new space will expand Fred Hutch’s wet lab capacity by 15%. Move-in is set for late September and October, according to Fred Hutch officials.

Founded in 2009, Adaptive went public on the Nasdaq stock market in June 2019. It recently raised $240 million in a follow-on stock offering.

Join the conversation along with Intel, Google Cloud, and key technology partner Appsbroker as they share game-changing results from customers, like RiverMeadow and ClimaCell, who have deployed on Google Cloud instances and VMWare bare metal.

The session, presented by Intel and Google Cloud, will take place Thursday, July 30th at 8:00 a.m. (PST).

Register today

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Has COVID-19 changed sports forever? UW, WSU athletic directors and Sounders owner look ahead

The Greatest Setting in College Football: Husky Stadium in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Taylor Soper)

The future of sports, just like many industries across the world, is up in the air as COVID-19 continues spreading across the country and world.

For now, professional leagues are playing condensed seasons inside “bubbles,” while some colleges are slashing sports programs altogether to cut costs. Countless questions about the temporary and permanent changes coming to the field and front office remain unanswered.

There was certainly much to discuss at a special GeekWire Virtual Roundtable on Thursday as Pat Chun, Washington State University director of athletics, Jennifer Cohen, University of Washington director of athletics, and Adrian Hanauer, majority owner of Seattle Sounders FC, joined us for an hour-long conversation about the state of sports in 2020 and beyond.

Watch the session above and read on for quick takeaways from the discussion. Thanks to sponsors Pure Storage and Davis Wright Tremaine for helping to make this session available to the GeekWire community. Comments edited for brevity and clarity.

On how sports look in a post-COVID-19 world: 

Adrian Hanauer (6:47): “For sure, there will be change from this. People love sports, and they will come back to sports. But there’s a long list, whether it’s new technologies in broadcast, the way we interact with athletes — both how organizations interact with athletes and with our fans — or something as simple as these video calls … it’s certainly changing the way we look at our business and the way we do certain activities.

We’re four months into this. There’s a balance to be struck between blowing up existing stadiums and building them completely differently because of COVID, versus, how do we do the right things to get through the next six months and year after that, and see where we’re at. But there are lots of things as simple as physical meetings across country that can be accomplished on a video call, or contactless stadium experiences where you’re not dealing with tickets and scanning and hitting keypads — those will be affected in a big way.”

On positive changes coming from the crisis: 

Jen Cohen (12:30): “What an amazing time to grow as a human being and as a leader. We’ve seen it with our coaches. Our industry is so noisy, complicated, competitive, fast-paced — it’s really hard for coaches in particular to have a holistic perspective. For our coaches, this time has really challenged them in ways they have never imagined. I’ve watched them grow as human beings in how they collaborate and how they view students. I really think it will have an impact on the way they coach and teach and develop students moving forward.”

Seattle Sounders FC players, coaches and family members celebrate at CenturyLink Field in Seattle in November won its second MLS Cup title in three years. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Liosta)

On football this fall:

Cohen (21:00): “One of the things that gets forgotten a lot in the dialogue around fall and football is that we have other students in other sports here. It’s a lot more complicated than one team. At this point we’re still looking for shortened fall seasons in our Olympic sports and a delayed start of a conference-only season for football. How we would then take all those fall sports and move them into the spring, I don’t know if that’s feasible. If we’re able to do that for football, I would be an advocate for that. But I also recognize that there are a lot of health and safety issues we would have to explore with the Pac-12 medical advisory committee because of the back-to-back seasons. It would likely have an impact on the season for the following year. It’s not as easy as people think and it’s very complex. But for Pat and I, to support all the Olympic sports for our business, it does not work if we don’t have football revenues.”

 We have to keep moving our enterprise forward. We can’t let adversity like this get in the way of what we’re supposed to be doing.

On having just some sports come back this year: 

Pat Chun (33:20): “It’s the travel piece. Even little things, like campus housing. There is consternation on campus because our student athlete population is scheduled to travel. That’s not to say a general student isn’t going to travel, but those are things going on in the minds of all student affairs divisions on campuses. How do you manage student athletes coming in and out of campus?”

On leadership lessons: 

Chun (42:30): “We’re ultimately in an adapt-or-die type of industry and we have to adapt to the young people. So the good thing for us is we’re wired in that way. The most successful administrators and coaches do a great job of adapting. Entrepreneurs and founders that are watching this livestream, they obviously adapt to what’s going on in the environment or in society.

As we go forward, it’s been nice to see leaders within our athletic department adapt and teach differently, communicate differently, build teams differently. How we interact with human beings may have changed immensely over the last couple months. But as long as we’re willing to adapt, to push ourselves and get out of our comfort zones a little bit, understanding that we all have different roles within an organization and we all have to excel at those those roles — we’re still able to get to places.

In these last couple months I’ve never been busier and I’ve never been slower at the same time. You’re bogged down with all these meetings, you’re trying to be more efficient with people’s time because you know by three or four o’clock people are all ‘Zoomed out.’ But you also know that we have a responsibility. We have to keep moving our enterprise forward. We can’t let adversity like this get in the way of what we’re supposed to be doing.”

On their favorite sports moment and what it says about the power of sport:

Hanauer (54:20): “It’s still the opening game in 2009 for the MLS Sounders. It was an emotional moment for all sorts of reasons. I was a kid who grew up in Seattle, going to the Sounders games starting in 1974 with my family. We went to every game for 10 years until that original team left. And when the 2009 Sounders started, my father had passed away recently and he was sort of always my soccer support. So then to see the stadium filled with families, with kids — that could have been me 35 years earlier. That was my top sporting moment.”

Cohen: “I would say watching Kelsey Plum break the NCAA basketball record for leading scorer for women’s basketball. I’m a Husky football girl — I grew up with Husky Stadium and have been to all kinds of Rose Bowls and watched amazing wins in football and amazing wins in our other sports. But that moment, just to see a female be that elite who was part of our university and to see this arena— literally you could not breathe in the arena with every shot. She just went off. And I’m just in the stands crying. I think it’s probably the mother in me. That moment was just really, really special.”

Chun: “For me, it’s not a game. It’s actually when College GameDay showed up at Washington State. It’s 6 a.m. and there’s 20,000 people around the stage. ESPN counts the show down and the whole country all of a sudden learned first-hand how crazy these Cougs are, that they are willing to show up at 6 a.m. just to show their love and passion for their alma mater. It’s pretty unique and special about Washington State. So just to have been here for such a proud moment for our institution, and to see all the people come out and express their love for Washington State is something I’ll never forget for the rest of my life.”

Cohen: “Can I say something about that? I was sitting on my couch that morning watching. I actually have goosebumps right now thinking about that moment, because that’s why we all do this, right? We want to unite community and we want to bring people together to be part of something bigger than themselves. And to know what kind of leader Pat is, and to know all that he had done over there to have a moment like that. To experience that in his career for the university — I mean, I was very emotional watching it, like I was part of Washington State University. I am not a Coug, and I will never be a Coug. But it really was special.”

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GeekWire Awards Preview: Neu founders forge ahead as travel fallout hits Airbnb cleaning startup

Kwame Boler, left, and Claudius Mbemba, co-founders of Neu. (NeuPhotos)

Like many businesses entering 2020, Neu was riding a wave of optimism and growth. With its marketplace that connects Airbnb hosts with hotel-grade cleaners, the Seattle-based startup had found its niche.

Just as Neu was joining the 11th cohort of Techstars Seattle to further fuel its success, the coronavirus pandemic arrived and changed everything. The economic fallout was swift, and travel was among the hardest hit industries.

“It was a one-two punch that definitely knocked us down a little bit,” Neu co-founder Kwame Boler told GeekWire. “We had a lot of momentum going into February. We were developing a lot of wealth within the Airbnb community. And then all of a sudden, everything almost completely flipped upside down.”

Neu experienced an unprecedented number of cancellations within its platform in just two months, with business shrinking to less than 10% of where it was the previous year. It had to stop its work to address various pain points and re-evaluate what it would mean to run a cleaning business in a post-COVID climate, especially one in which travel would likely be impacted for some time.

But with the desire for on-demand cleaning and sanitizing suddenly skyrocketing, the startup rapidly accelerated its plans to look into cleaning beyond vacation rentals and taking on businesses, residential and commercial real estate properties.

“Those who enjoy or thrive in this kind of environment, in doing a startup or owning a business around this time, are those who are really in it for the long run,” said Neu co-founder Claudius Mbemba. “It just taught me that this is what I really want to be doing.”

GeekWire caught up with Boler and Mbemba to learn more about how the startup is faring in this installment of a special GeekWire Podcast series highlighting some of the finalists for the upcoming GeekWire Awards. Boler and Mbemba are among the finalists for Young Entrepreneur of the Year — celebrating startup founders in the Pacific Northwest who are 30 or younger.

Register here to watch the live virtual event for free at 4 p.m. on Thursday, July 23.

Listen below and continue reading for excerpts from our conversation:

Business plan on overdrive: “We had always seen ourselves as becoming the de facto leaders of cleaning and not the de facto leaders of vacation rental cleaning,” Boler said. “[The pandemic] just pushed us … where we started exploring opportunities in those other markets. We have already started talking with a lot of different customers and working through different pricing configurations.”

An entrepreneur’s big fear: “It was frightening,” Mbemba said. “There was a good three weeks where we were just in limbo, and for entrepreneurs that’s the biggest dread, not having a sense of direction, feeling that the world was so tumultuous and everything was so ambiguous. We had no idea where we were going to go. We knew that we needed to go back to the drawing board to figure out where our leverage would come from. It was very scary.”

Lessons on leadership: “My biggest values have always been transparency and communication,” Mbemba said. “It becomes even more important during times of crisis, because people want to know that they can trust you. And they can believe in what you’re saying.” … “We’ve learned that there’s definitely a need to be flexible,” Boler added, “and also the value on mental health, checking in on people privately and trying to see where they are. I’m trying to offer a lot more resources and support. These are incredibly trying times.”

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