Acro Real Estate partners with urban startup Venn, implementing its residential platform

Israeli development company Acro Real Estate has partnered with urban startup Venn to create a platform to enhance local neighborhoods for tenants throughout their entire home-cycle. Combining human expertise, technology, and programming, the platform hopes to enhance connections fostered in local communities.

The platform will be open to Acro properties and tenants and have four sections dedicated to ‘designing the future of residential living.’ These include ‘Content and Events’, where neighbors can schedule social events; ‘Local Services’, which offers helpful services by local businesses; ‘Shared Spaces’, whereby Venn can design and manage shared community spaces to match tenant’s needs; and ‘Smart Building Experiences’, which acts as a digital experience with property management companies for feedback and service issues.

The platform will be offered to tenants free of charge for 18 months in the GOLF development in Neot Afeka, and in TEL-AVIV YARD development in Neve-Sharet, which total 550 properties. Eventually, Acro and Venn intend to expand the initiative.

"The global pandemic has made our homes, buildings, and neighborhoods more important than ever,” said Lianne Pollak-David, Venn’s VP of Business Development. “When work needs, life needs, and everything in-between must be provided by our surroundings, a sense of belonging is now critical to our lives and happiness… Acro understands that what is important to buyers now - beyond the four walls of their home - is the vibrant community of which they are an important part.”

Naama Peled-Raz, Head of Marketing at Acro added that “community, leisure and the surrounding take a much more central place in the decision-making process of home buyers these days, and Covid-19 has accelerated this even further… We have decided that we have a responsibility and an interest to be involved in designing the way of living in our developments, even after our formal role in the process is over.”

Venn was founded in 2017 by Or Bokobza, Chen Avni, and David Sherez and operates in Tel Aviv, New York, and Berlin. Acro Real Estate is a development company owned by Zahi Arbob, Ilan Kapon, and Ziv Yacobi (pictured), and manages properties in Israel such as the Microsoft Campus, Tel Aviv Tower, Complex Golf, and Rothschild 17 Tower.