Radious, the Portland startup that runs a marketplace where residential properties can be used as collaborative workspaces, expanded its reach across the U.S. with a new “national curation service.”
The service, launched earlier this month, helps companies find the right remote work and meeting locations for distributed teams. Radious previously ran its Airbnb-style listings only in Portland, San Francisco and Milwaukee and the new service brings Radious to Seattle and other cities nationwide.
Started during the pandemic in June 2021, Radious has sought to give remote workers a way to get out of the house but still stay in their neighborhoods and avoid commutes to offices or other co-working spaces. The platform also helps hosts earn money by renting their homes, apartments, or other types of properties for the day without worrying about overnight stays.
CEO Amina Moreau launched Radious with co-founders Brian Hendrickson and iLan Epstein. The company participated in the season three finale of GeekWire’s “Elevator Pitch” startup competition.
The curation service was piloted under the radar for about eight months. Radious works with companies to understand their needs for a team offsite or other in-person work, including location, technical requirements, number of people, number of days, etc., and then locates an ideal space for such a gathering — even if such a space is not currently listed on the Radious marketplace.
Moreau said Radious saw about a 20% increase in bookings as a direct result of the pilot and that revenue more than doubled despite no extra charge for the personalized service. She added that the service has opened up access to “tens of thousands of workspace options” across the country.
“We’ve found that the bigger the need people have, the greater the desire for a personalized experience,” Moreau said via email. “The curation service naturally attracts teams who are already looking for longer, multi-day bookings and/or bigger, more striking workspaces. Put simply, when people are making a bigger commitment, they want to talk to someone and feel taken care of.”
Radious is embracing flexible work solutions as companies and workers are still coming to grips with what types of workplaces and schedules make the most sense post-pandemic.
“Just because your office is open doesn’t mean that you have to mandate a full or even a partial return,” Moreau previously told GeekWire. “You can just open it and say, ‘Come if you want, don’t come if you don’t want.’ And I actually think that the companies that do that are the ones that are going to win in the talent wars.”
In the Seattle region, regional office vacancy rates continue to rise as tech companies stick with hybrid and remote friendly work policies, and the tech downturn that began in 2022 has caused many to trim expenses and lay off workers, reducing the need for office space.
More cities, including Seattle, are also weighing what to do with a glut of vacant office space, including how to convert some commercial real estate to residential use.
