Hybrid Hospitality Meets Crowdfunding

Outsite, a membership-based hospitality company that focuses on remote workers, has raised $1 million through an alternative method: crowdfunding.

The Santa Cruz-headquartered startup turned to Wefunder to raise the cash, giving investors a slice of equity in the company from $500. Their investment will convert into equity in a future of round of funding, usually led by an institutional investor, or when there is an exit. The venture exposes about 2.5 percent of Outsite's $40 million value.

It reached its $1 million goal after launching just a week ago, but CEO Emmanuel Guisset described the decision as a “roll of the dice.”

That’s because investor appetite has waned since the beginning of the year, with many travel companies in particular delaying or pulling out of plans to go public. The buzz around special purpose acquisition companies has subsided too.

Outsite’s fundraising efforts also come as global markets face up to the possibility of recession. To make matters worse, many of Outsite’s guests operate in the crypto world, which has been rocked by the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

However, 60 percent of Outsite’s members said they wanted an opportunity to invest, based on a poll it carried out recently. So Guisset took a leap of faith.

“We could have raised $1 million if we’d done it in early 2022, before the crisis,” he said. “Now people are watching their money a bit more, and a lot of people lost money in crypto. We were a bit scared of that. But it shows there’s appetite to invest in brands and products.”

The success could be a precursor to a major 2023 trend: brands that have been courting remote workers could be rewarded next year as travel restrictions further ease, particula