SmartRent Co-Founder Tapped as CEO of 1VALET
A co-founder of smart-home technology company SmartRent has been appointed CEO of 1VALET. 1VALET, which provides a smart building operating system and video intercoms, stated the leadership change positions the company to scale its platform across North America. This move signals consolidation and maturing leadership within the proptech sector.
- The new CEO, Demetrios Barnes, co-founded SmartRent in 2017 and served as its Chief Operating Officer. At SmartRent, he was involved in taking the company public in 2021 and scaling its operations, which included managing the deployment of 167,000 smart home units in a single year. - 1VALET, founded in 2016, provides a smart building operating system and has raised a total of $23.8M in funding. The company's most recent funding round in November 2024 was for $5 million, which brought its post-investment valuation to nearly $200 million. - 1VALET's platform is a SaaS-based solution for residential properties that integrates hardware and software for features like entry management, concierge services, and remote monitoring. The company has seen a compound annual growth rate of approximately 200% over the last five years. - SmartRent (NYSE: SMRT) currently has a market capitalization of approximately $300 million. The company has been undergoing a strategic shift from a focus on low-margin hardware to a SaaS-based model, with SaaS revenues accounting for 39% of total income in the third quarter of 2025. - The broader "proptech" sector is experiencing a wave of consolidation, with over 200 acquisitions in 2024 alone. This trend is driven by a focus on profitability and the integration of comprehensive platforms over single-point solutions. - Prior to co-founding SmartRent, Demetrios Barnes was the Vice President of Technology Operations for Colony Starwood Homes, where he managed the internalization of property management across 12 states.
