Listed on the NYSE (SMRT); CEO resigned and activists are pushing for a sale
The rise & fall
7 moments · 2017–2026
The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.
2017
🌱
2017
Founded in Scottsdale
Smart locks, thermostats and leak sensors for entire apartment buildings — sold to landlords, not tenants.
Wikipedia
Aug 2021
📈
Aug 2021
The peak: a $2.2B SPAC debut$2.2B
Merges onto the NYSE with proptech VC Fifth Wall's SPAC, banking $513M in cash.
The Real Deal
2022
2022
Growth stalls
A cooling rental market slows installs; the SPAC-deck projections slip out of reach.
Seeking Alpha
2022
💔
2022
Slips out of the club
Down with the rest of the SPAC class of 2021.
stockanalysis
2024
2024
Questions pile up, the CEO exits
Short-seller and security concerns surface, and the chief executive resigns.
The Real Deal
2022–25
💬
From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2022–25
Glassdoor reviews from the slide described morale sagging with the stock — frequent reorganizations and shifting priorities, plus a revolving door at the top, with staff counting three CEOs inside a single year.
2025–26
2025–26
An activist pushes for a sale
Now a roughly $300M small-cap, SmartRent faces open pressure to sell itself.
Seeking Alpha
💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.
How it happened
SmartRent sells smart-home hardware and software — connected locks, thermostats, leak sensors and building-wide access control — to apartment owners and operators. Backed by proptech VC Fifth Wall, it went public on the NYSE in August 2021 via a SPAC merger valuing it at $2.2B.
Growth stalled amid a cooling rental market, short-seller and security concerns surfaced, and the shares fell about 86%. By 2026 it was a roughly $300M small-cap, with an activist investor pressing it to sell itself.
Source: The Real Deal / Seeking Alpha / stockanalysis (smart-home/apartment proptech; Aug 2021 SPAC merger backed by Fifth Wall at a $2.2B valuation with $513M cash; growth stalled and accounting/security concerns surfaced, the CEO resigned, and an activist pushed for a sale; market cap ~$0.3B in 2025-26)
