R-Zero Acquires CoWorkr to Advance Indoor Health and Productivity

By Grant Morgan, Co-Founder

In the introduction to their influential 2020 book Healthy Buildings: How Indoor Spaces Drive Performance and Productivity, Joseph G. Allen and John D. Macomber describe the multidisciplinary pursuit of healthier indoor spaces as “the greatest untapped business and health opportunity of our time.” Today, R-Zero is significantly advancing the future of smart and healthy buildings by announcing our acquisition of CoWorkr, a leading property technology company offering privacy-first space utilization sensors for data-driven workplaces. With the addition of CoWorkr’s versatile, AI-driven occupancy sensor network and intelligent, granular workplace analytics, R-Zero will drive the future of indoor health and productivity by combining real-time occupancy visibility with disinfection automation. This powerful union of solutions will enable direct investment against what authors Allen and Macomber describe as the “true cost of operating our buildings”: not the energy, waste, or water powering buildings, but the people occupying them.

Space Utilization Insights at the Core of Intelligent Disinfection

At R-Zero, our commitment to intelligent disinfection automation requires insight into space utilization to ensure that the spaces our solutions protect are truly clinically clean. CoWorkr’s sophisticated thermal sensing technology prioritizes privacy while providing intelligent, granular workplace analytics based on real-time occupancy and space utilization. This data layer will empower organizations with continuous, autonomous disinfection infrastructure, by enabling R-Zero’s UV-C disinfection platform to analyze how an entire workplace functions, assess real-time risk, and then automatically disinfect the spaces that need it. 

In workplaces today, space utilization is a critical determinant of risk. By understanding where people are (and where they’re not) in a given space, organizations can make their health and safety operations more efficient and effective. Real-time insights into occupancy empowers businesses to successfully measure and manage indoor health with a level of sophistication and ease that until now has not existed. With this truly innovative combination of technologies, businesses can right-size their real estate footprint, design spaces that promote collaboration and connection, and protect the health of their occupants with continuous, automated disinfection. We have a once in a generation opportunity to reimagine everything about how our physical environments promote productivity and peace of mind – and the organizations that successfully adapt will have a massive competitive advantage in the post-pandemic world.

Reimagining Physical Environments with Productivity and Health at their Core

Virtually every organization knows that the workplace has changed forever – even if we don’t yet know all of the ways it will change. The combination of R-Zero and CoWorkr’s best-in-class technologies provide organizations with a holistic suite of tools to transform physical spaces to align with our new mode of work, and fundamentally change how physical spaces promote productivity and peace of mind. As CoWorkr’s CEO, Elizabeth Redmond, has noted, “Together, we will be building an unprecedented platform that efficiently manages air quality, optimizes space utilization, and helps people feel like they can thrive again at work.”

R-Zero will continue to invest in CoWorkr’s workplace intelligence platform, which forms the foundation for a fully integrated built environment that actively works to reduce environmental risk. CoWorkr’s sensors provide unprecedented visibility into real-time risk within a space, and together with R-Zero’s category-defining disinfection solutions create a closed loop ecosystem that can autonomously act to mitigate that risk.

A Dynamic Future Ahead

CoWorkr has already distinguished itself as the leader in prop tech and workplace intelligence. As a provider of continuous and automated disinfection solutions across industries, R-Zero is proud to extend CoWorkr’s real-time risk assessment and automation capabilities into new contexts. Together, CoWorkr and R-Zero will redefine holistic building health through our dynamic suite of uv-c disinfection and space utilization technologies. 

We can all agree that a lot has changed since COVID engulfed the globe in the early months of 2020. One positive pandemic-induced outcome has been widespread, heightened awareness of the impact indoor environments have on overall health. That heightened awareness informs our vision of a new standard for how we manage and mitigate environmental risk in indoor spaces through intelligent, autonomous, and continuous disinfection. We couldn’t be more thrilled to have CoWorkr joining us on that journey.

As such, I encourage you to read this letter from CoWorkr’s CEO and co-founder, Elizabeth Redmond. 

Onwards…

Grant

**If you’re interested in joining us on our mission, as we work to solve one of society’s greatest challenges, we’re currently hiring across all departments. See all open positions and apply at rzero.com/careers.