SmartRent
- 🦄Became a unicorn2021
- 📈Peak valuation$2.2 Billion ’21
- 💔Became a Unitard2022
- 💸Last valuation~$308M
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%. Glassdoor reviews from the slide describe 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. By 2026 it was a roughly $300M small-cap, with an activist investor pressing it to sell itself.
Employee accounts paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗. See our methodology.
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)
