Oh, the Places We’ll Wander — Announcing our Series B
Michael Chen, Co-Founder
2019 has been a pivotal year of growth for WanderJaunt. Late last year, we opened the doors of our first WanderJaunt in Austin, and this year we’ve grown to over 100 properties in the area. We’ve also seen continued growth in the Phoenix metro area, operating close to 250 properties there. In those cities we’ve had the privilege of hosting travelers of all types — business and leisure — on both short and long term stays. We are still at the beginning of our journey to redefine hospitality, and WanderJaunt’s future remains brighter than ever.
Today, I am excited to announce that we’ve raised $15 million in a Series B round, led by Founders Fund. This brings our total capital raised to over $25 million. Along with this investment, Keith Rabois (General Partner, Founders Fund) will join our board. His extensive background in technology (Square, LinkedIn, PayPal and Opendoor) will be invaluable to WanderJaunt as we look to scale our platform and enable seamless experiences for homeowners and travelers.
I’m also excited to welcome new investors Tribe Capital, Stone Bridge Ventures, Tony Xu (DoorDash co-founder & CEO), Andy Fang (DoorDash co-founder & CTO), Adrian Aoun (Forward CEO) and Chung-Man Tam (2nd Address CEO). And I would like to extend a huge thank you to Khosla Ventures, Global Founders Capital, SV Angel, and The House Fund who have supported WanderJaunt throughout our journey so far.
Since our Series A last year, WanderJaunt has achieved unprecedented growth, increasing total stays by over 500%. This Series B funding will enable us to deepen our presence in our existing markets and operate in four markets in the U.S. by the end of 2019. To support this growth, we’ll also expand our teams in San Francisco, Phoenix, Austin, and wherever we wander next.
As we announce this exciting news, it’s hard to believe that three short years ago Barrett, Andres, and I were managing only one property in Phoenix. For the first many months, our founding team was also our cleaning, maintenance, and customer support teams. Thankfully, we’ve been lucky enough to find much better versions of all those teams to help us along the way, but our learnings from those days will always remain top of mind. This is an operationally intensive business, but a rewarding one when done correctly.
As we enter the next phase of our journey, our teams in San Francisco, Phoenix, Austin, and other cities will continue to help us redefine hospitality and enable seamless experiences for homeowners and travelers. I can’t wait to see what we’ll accomplish together.
If you want to learn more about opportunities at WanderJaunt, check out our careers page. For media inquiries, contact us at press@wanderjaunt.com. And, of course, stay tuned for more news on where we’ll wander next!
