WhyHotel is an alternative hospitality service provider that creates pop-up hotels. The company uses yet-to-be-leased units in new apartment buildings as fully furnished hotel suites. As such, the company does not own any real estate listings.

History

WhyHotel was founded in January 2017 by real estate developers Jason Fudin and Bao Vuong.[1]

The company's first pop-up hotel was a pilot program from January to May 2017 which included 50 empty units at an apartment building in Pentagon City, VA owned by owned by Vornado Realty.[2] WhyHotel then spun off of Vornado Realty and became an independent, venture-backed startup in the summer of 2017.[3]

The company received $3.9 million in seed funding in June 2018,[4] and $20 million in Series B funding in December 2019.[5]

In 2018 WhyHotel opened pop-up hotels in Baltimore and Washington, D.C.[6][7][8] The following year, WhyHotel opened pop-up hotels in Ballston in April 2019, Seattle in September 2019, and Tysons Corner, VA in December 2019. In 2020, the company has opened a pop-up hotel in Houston and announced new locations in Maryland, and Arlington.[9][10]

In May 2019, WhyHotel announced a new business arm called Hospitality Living, which aims to deliver flexible use home and hotel buildings constructed by WhyHotel. The company aims to construct the first of this type of building in 2022.[11]

References

  1. ↑ "Our Founders' Story". whyhotel.com. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  2. ↑ Kusisto, Laura (2017-07-11). "Startups Help Landlords Turn Apartments Into Hotel Rooms". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  3. ↑ "Vornado's WhyHotel spinoff is on its own — and raising millions in funding". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved 2020-11-27.
  4. ↑ Wang, Jenna. "Pop-Up Hotel Startup WhyHotel Secures $3.9 Million In Seed Funding". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  5. ↑ "WhyHotel raises $20 million to bring pop-up hotel rooms to cities across the U.S." VentureBeat. 2019-12-11. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  6. ↑ Trejos, Nancy. "Pop-up hotels? Yeah, that's a thing now". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  7. ↑ magazine, Baltimore (2018-06-20). "A New Hotel Pop-Up Concept Comes to Baltimore". Baltimore magazine. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  8. ↑ Cohn, Meredith. "Pop-up hotel to operate out of upscale Baltimore apartment building". baltimoresun.com. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  9. ↑ Tunberg, Ingrid (20 February 2020). "WhyHotel To Launch Fifth Pop-Up Location in Columbia, MD". GlobeSt. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  10. ↑ Koma, Alex (27 March 2020). "WhyHotel has a second pop-up hotel planned for Ballston". bizjournals. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  11. ↑ "WhyHotel to start building its own properties". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
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