Latch is a maker of smart home hardware such as door locks, but the real focus of the company is on its building "operating system," LatchOS. With the company set to go public via SPAC merger with TS Innovation Acquisition (TSIA), investors might want to take a closer look at this high-potential disruptor. In this Fool Live video clip, recorded on March 8, Fool.com contributor Matt Frankel, CFP, sits down for a conversation with Latch CEO Luke Schoenfelder to find out more about what the company does and why it sees such a large opportunity.
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Matt Frankel: For those who don't know, Luke is the CEO of Latch, a property technology company. But for those who aren't too familiar with Latch, can you briefly explain the short version of what your company does?
Luke Schoenfelder: Absolutely, yes. Our thesis from the beginning has always been to make buildings better places to live, work, and visit. We do that through LatchOS, which is our software platform. Then through devices that we make, and partner devices, and integrations with companies like UPS or package delivery, and all sorts of other amazing things that need to happen at a building.
Frankel: Excellent. LatchOS is the product, but you also actually produce the physical hardware, correct?
Schoenfelder: We do, yeah. My background, I previously worked at Apple (AAPL 1.27%). My other co-founder was from the design team at Apple. A lot of the team is from Apple, so it's a similar ethos around software that's differentiated by hardware as well. I think that's been our thesis, was how can we build something that works better together for everybody at the building?
Frankel: It is 2021. How has it taken this long for technology to creep into real estate?
Schoenfelder: It's very interesting. We joked that rent is the world's oldest subscription product and it hasn't changed in a few thousand years. It really hasn't. The experience is the same, and I think there is a few reasons. One, there's nobody in real estate, even with our largest partners, that's truly at full scale. Everybody is operating in a sub-scale way, where they were not able to build their own technology products. They needed other folks to come along and build products that they could use, and no one has been able to do that in a totally widespread way, focused on all the users. We see our challenge as being the first product company to do that. It's exciting, but it's also difficult because it can be a fragmented market. That was why it's so important for us to work directly with so many important customers as both investors and supporters of the company.
