'Flex living' gains scale with the merger of Badi and Caterina

The real estate sector adds a player that will give weight to flexible housing: Barcelona-based Badi and Caterina merge to create a platform specialized in flex living with which they aspire to become one of the main players in the sector. The new company will start with more than 250 million euros in assets under management and expects to exceed 7,000 operational units in the next four years, with Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia as the main growth markets.

Thus, the operation represents a meeting point for two companies that until now had followed different paths, although with many points of confluence: Caterina focuses on corporate living, aimed at professionals who temporarily relocate for work reasons, while Badi was born a decade ago to connect people looking for a room in the city, on a platform that has expanded its focus and specialized in flexible medium and long-term rentals.

However, for now "both brands are maintained," as Badi co-founder Carlos Pierre explains. "We have a distinct demand, towards the same asset. Now we will be able to offer the same asset to both types of demand, regardless of who manages it," summarizes Pierre, who will lead the project alongside Badi co-founder Álvaro Córdoba.

With this objective, the company will integrate both activities under the same technological platform, with the aim of covering the different flexible stay formats. With more than five million registered users and 20,000 flexible rental listings in Spain, Badi will contribute its digital dimension, which will coexist with Caterina's operational experience.

The platform, which will also be enhanced with new functionalities, aims to offer a service to individuals as well as companies, and also investors. So much so that the new company wants to position itself as a partner for institutional investors and family offices interested in developing these flex living assets in Spain.

To do this, the company's proposal is to "accompany the entire process," from identifying investment opportunities to the daily management of buildings and their tenants, as Pierre emphasizes: "We want to be the benchmark and the partner for institutional investors and family offices who want to invest in the real estate sector."

Boost with Meridia and Barlon Capital

The operation will be accompanied by a capital increase led by Meridia and Barlon Capital, who are already current reference shareholders of Caterina and Badi, respectively. The resources will serve to strengthen the team, boost technological development, and incorporate new assets into the platform. "The Badi and Caterina teams are complementary, and so are the investors," Pierre emphasizes.

From Meridia, Javier Faus has agreed to highlight that the operation "combines two highly complementary platforms," while Javier Rubió, founder of Barlon Capital, has argued that the agreement "lays the groundwork for scaling to thousands of beds." Caterina co-founder Manuel Vidal-Quadras sees it similarly: "This operation represents the next step in Caterina's evolution, transforming a specialized corporate living operator into a platform with greater scale."

It also represents a step for Badi, which aims to build the reference platform for flexible rental, and which opens a new stage with this merger, and with new strategies: in Barcelona, it will focus on large projects outside the city center: "The plan is to increase the number of homes in the park, instead of renovating what already exists," Pierre highlights regarding this new stage that the company is now opening.