Apartment startup Stay Alfred raises $47 million to pursue U.S. expansion
United States: Stay Alfred, a startup that rents out apartments and turns them into short-term rentals, has raised $47 million to continue its expansion across the U.S.
Nine Four Ventures led the deal negotiations, which pushed the total funding invested into the seven-year-old company to date to $62 million.
Stay Alfred has nearly 2,000 travel apartments across 28 markets. It leases individual units and entire buildings in cities and then rents them out on a short-term basis to travellers.
The travel company is responsible for handling the furnishing, cleaning, booking, and customer service for each rental. Its customers primarily consist of leisure travellers or people who want a hotel experience with the flexibility of a furnished apartment.
Stay Alfred CEO Jordan Allen said: “We recognised that most options in our industry lacked the consistency that travellers still seek, even as those travellers pursue alternatives to the bland shoeboxes of the traditional hotel offering.
“We’ve focused on developing the infrastructure and expertise to deliver not only a consistent, high-end experience for our guests, but for our developer partners as well,” he added.
Stay Alfred originally started as a short-term rental company, such as Airbnb or VRBO, but merged into a hybrid of a hotel and vacation rental. Allen, who co-founded the company, previously described his business as ‘Marriott meets Airbnb’.
The company website said: “If you’re here, it means that you want more from the places you stay. You’re no longer satisfied with that cramped hotel or the packed full of other people’s stuff stuffiness of a typical vacation rental. You want to live like a local without the local.”
Stay Alfred is projecting a $110 million run rate for the rest of 2018. It also competes with another Washington startup, the Seattle-based company, Domicile, which raised $5 million last month.
