At a time when China’s zero-COVID policy continues to disrupt offline work and face-to-face interactions, Dominic Penaloza, former head of innovation and technology at WeWork China, presents a bold idea: on-demand work booths located in public places. locations, and has been able to quickly raise capital for the business.
Peñaloza named his new company Peace in hopes of improving the mental health of those who use the company’s quiet, private space to avoid crowded offices and noisy cafes. Peace announced this week that he has raised a seven-figure round of funding from a group of business partners and entrepreneurs.
Peace is the latest iteration of Peñaloza’s ongoing experiment with flexible working. In 2019, the executive led an internal project to offer pay-per-use spaces at WeWork China. A year later, he went on to found his own proptech-focused startup studio, which incubated a similar but on-demand workspace service. taking advantage of third-party owners.
Seven-month-old Peace launched her first batch of portable pods last week at three high-end malls and two office buildings in the heart of Shanghai. Their goal is to deploy 1,000 of them in the metropolis next year, Peñaloza said in a video call from one of the shopping center’s capsules.
“We are selling privacy on demand,” the founder said when I asked if the booths would be equipped with security cameras, an infrastructure that has become ubiquitous across China and often raises privacy concerns.
“We do not plan to put cameras… I think it is more important to make our users feel that it is really a 100% private space. No one can hear what they are saying. And of course no one can see their screen or them.”
Each Peace capsule is 35 square meters with a meeting table for four people. The portable box comes with an app-enabled lock, electrical outlets, WiFi, soundproof walls, and fans. It also has COVID-19 prevention technology provided by a startup called lumenlabs which uses the novel far UVC method to inactivate viruses and bacteria.
Each of Peace’s work pods can accommodate four people. Image: Peace
The long list of equipment explains the high cost of the capsules: in the mid-10s of thousands of yuan (1 USD = 7.16 yuan at the time of writing) to make one.
Peñaloza believes his team has figured out a sustainable revenue model. Each capsule costs 11.25 yuan for 15 minutes, but this is a reference price, the founder said, and in the future, the cost may vary based on location and real-time supply and demand. It’s not cheap: an Americano costs around 25 yuan in an average cafe in major Chinese cities like Shanghai and Shenzhen, but if four people split the cost of 45 yuan, plus the advantages that a capsule brings: privacy and stable internet, and if Peace reaches significant density, it could be a viable business.
Peace has also found a sweet spot in its relationship with landlords, including retail spaces, office building lobbies, renewable urban spaces, transportation hubs, exhibition centers, and residential developments.
“We don’t rent the space,” explained Peñaloza. “Our formula for working with real estate companies is one of our most secret sauces because this hardware, in the language of homeowners, is actually an asset enhancement. It should be part of the renovation budget they have from year to year to improve the building and keep it competitive, so that the peace capsules attract white-collar workers to spend more time in a building.”
“Even when we put it in an office lobby, even though everyone has an office upstairs, people still use it, especially in China, where hybrid work is not yet popular, because the small meeting rooms in which offices are often fully used and everyone needs peace. and quiet from time to time”, added the founder.
Working with the owners also helps Peace save on maintenance costs. Since the COVID outbreak, the Chinese government has started asking indoor space operators to clean their facilities after use. Peace’s technology platform automatically alerts the property manager at the end of each booking, and a cleaner will be dispatched to the pod, a process that can be as quick as spraying surfaces with disinfectant and wiping them down.
Investors in Peace consists primarily of entrepreneurs, including Aden Group’s Joachim Poylo and Francois Ammand, Brooke Husband’s Chris Brooke, CleanAir Spaces’ Pablo Fernandez, CM Venture’s Patrick Berbon, Kailong’s Hei Ming Cheng, Lumenlabs’ Wei Cao, Penaloza himself , and Panda Eagle Group.
