Hospitality platform
WhyHotel
has landed a $90 million investment to put toward property acquisitions as well as the operating company.
The company, which started as a pop-up hotel concept, is also rebranding to Placemakr to better reflect its business divisions of hotels and mixed-use apartment buildings.
The investment comes from finance companies and real estate businesses including Davidson Kempner Capital Management, Gaw Capital, Suffolk Technologies, Geolo Capital and JBG Smith.
Alongside the $90 million equity investment, Placemakr has secured programmatic equity to acquire $750 million of property to turn into mixed-use units.
Jason Fudin, co-founder and CEO of Placemakr, says the company acquired $250 million of real estate last year to add to its platform as “permanently flexible real estate under the Placemakr brand.”
“We plan on acquiring another $750 million of real estate in the next 18 to 24 months and we have programmatic equity, meaning pre-negotiated terms for joint venture, to buy $750 million of real estate.”
Fudin says the WhyHotel pop-up concept now accounts for about 20% of the business with Placemakr, its flexible, mixed-use building concept the focus for growth going forward.
“Our second business line, which we’re now branding Placemakr is where we take a 300 unit building on a forever basis and run it as furnished or unfurnished, short and long-term stay. That can be for six months, six weeks or one night. Today more than 80% of our inventory is that permanently flexible set of assets.”
He adds that the company owns about half of its inventory with the other half run on behalf of owners.
Fudin also says that the pandemic changed the real-estate mindset with property companies being more open to mixed-use units.
“Real estate is a pretty old-fashioned business. Everybody does it the way they have always done it. The idea that you could take a hotel or an apartment building and remix them together to this more profitable, more downside protected, more flexible asset was hard for people to wrap their arms around. Covid changed all that."
He says the company expects real estate developers will move to a this more flexible, apartment-style inventory going forward.
“So, this ends up being one of the largest and fastest growing asset classes in the U.S. and we sit as the platform that brings it to life.”
WhyHotel, a
PhocusWire Hot 25 Startups 2020 company
, secured
$10 million in Series A funding in December 2018
and a further
$10 million a year later
.