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Sonder, a luxury short-term rental startup, has clinched an additional $210 million in funding, the latest indication that investors are hot on startups that rent apartments from landlords to sublease them to tenants and travelers.
The Series D funding round brings Sonder’s total capital raised to $400 million at a valuation of more than $1 billion. The round was led by Equity Partners, WestCap and Nicholas Pritzker, through Tao Capital Partners.
Sonder also secured $15 million from developers “who are partnering with Sonder on new deals in cities all over the world,” according to a blog post published by the firm.
Sonder leases apartments or entire buildings from landlords, spruces them up and rents out units over flexible timelines, anywhere from one night to two years. It provides hotel-like amenities along with service from staff reachable by text 24 hours a day, according to its website.
The startup offers 8,500 spaces in 20 cities across North America and Europe, according to the blog post. It anticipates generating $400 million in revenue in 2019, four times more than in 2018.
In all, Sonder manages over $2.3 billion in projects, “spanning commercially-zoned mixed-use, residential, service apartment, apart-hotel and hotel assets.”
Another venture-funded proxy landlord is Bungalow, a startup that subleases units room by room with a minimum lease of four months. It was dubbed the “renter’s equivalent” of iBuyer Opendoor by Opendoor co-founder Keith Rabois.
Other players operating in this space include Blueground, which targets business travelers with upscale units, and PodShare, which a Guardian columnist said has “rebranded the bunk bed.”
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