WhyHotel, an alternative lodging service that operates 100-room pop-up hotels in newly built luxury apartment buildings acquired $3.94 million in a seed funding round led by Camber Creek, with participation from Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, Mendacre, MetaProp, Vornado/Charles E. Smith (predecessor to JBG SMITH Properties), Working Lab Capital, and Mitchell Schear.
Originally incubated at a large publicly-traded REIT, the company takes units that have yet to be leased when a large high-rise apartment building completes construction and adds a modern hospitality service to turn the building’s inherent vacancies into temporary, 24/7 on-site staffed luxury hotel rooms. WhyHotel scales its unit count with the building’s natural delivery and leasing pace, gradually winding down its footprint as units are leased to long-term residents, and ultimately exiting altogether once all units are leased.
WhyHotel plans to use the funds to launch hotels in the pipeline and source talent for upcoming projects across major US cities.