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This real estate company helps developers pivot between hotel, short- and long-term living spaces. See the pitch deck behind its $65 million funding round.

Placemakr runs apartment buildings like hotels, with short- and long-term leases on furnished rooms.
The company is now buying buildings of its own and is eyeing an office conversion.
CEO Jason Fudin walked us through the deck he used to raise $65 million.

Things have changed drastically in the world of real estate since the coronavirus upended life three years ago. The rise of digital nomads, the short-term shocks to hospitality and retail properties, and the long-term pain for office landlords have all reshuffled the decks.

Washington D.C.-based Placemakr, founded in 2018, has evolved, too. The company, first known as WhyHotel, which served developers by turning empty spaces in luxury apartment buildings into “pop-up” hotels, suffered early in the pandemic. It made “significant” layoffs in April 2020, as unemployment skyrocketed and many of its competitors shuttered.

Now, the company has rebranded by expanding its product line into different forms of short-, medium-, and long-term rentals. Getting to this more diversified model was always part of the plan, said CEO and cofounder Jason Fudin.

The company now offers pop-up hotels and furnished and unfurnished apartments, with their uses being flexible as seasonal demands and trends require. For example, a property in Boston might be more short-term rental based during the summer, while long-term leases make more sense during the cold winters.

Placemakr partners with major landlords such as Equity Residential and Brookfield to rent out portions of their buildings and has over $1 billion worth of assets under its management. It has also set up a real estate fund in the OpCo/PropCo model, for purchasing real estate on its own.

“If you strip down the emotional piece of it, the most valuable real estate is real estate that has an increased cash flow and reduced volatility,” Fudin said. Placemakr meets those terms by combining the relative safety of multifamily properties with the typically higher revenues of the hospitality sector, he said.

The company is now betting on another post-COVID trend — the conversion of obsolete office buildings into other uses, such as housing.

Using its PropCo fund, the company recently purchased an office building near downtown Washington, DC, with plans to make it a Placemakr property. While conversions don’t always pencil out, this one can because it’s a smaller office with a floorplan that can be adapted to apartments, Fudin said.

“This property is the exception, not the rule,” said Fudin, who has experience with conversions when working with Vornado Realty Trust. Placemakr has already been operating a former office to residential conversion in the New York City building that used to house WeLive, WeWork’s coliving brand.

Placemakr recently announced a $65 million Series C, with capital raised from experienced proptech venture capital players Camber Creek and real estate investors like Bernstein Management Corporation. Fudin walked us through the deck he used to raise the round, which he expects to be Placemakr’s final venture round.

This slide kicks off the deck with a reminder that flexibility in real estate is good business.

The company is making bets on mixed-use, flexible properties. And it’s saying that those that don’t follow along will fall behind.

Buidlings often just have one, fixed use.

Placemakr claims that mixed-use buildings, like the one shown here, get more revenue than traditional buildings. The pandemic is amplifying that trend.

Demand for both short-term and long-term furnished rentals is burgeoning, according to the sources Placemakr is highlighting.

Placemakr is offering itself as a partner for investors who want to try out flexible buildings.

This slide sets up the section that explains Placemakr’s model.

Placemakr sits square in the middle of a venn diagram between multifamily and hotels. Apartment-style spaces can be booked for wide ranges of times.

This slide shows how the company’s product benefits from both sectors: higher revenue, and lower costs.

The company can also switch the makeup of a building based on seasonal or macroeconomic trends.

This slide shows multiple products that Placemakr offers, from operating or owning a property, to the pop-up operations it focused on in its WhyHotel days.

This page shows the technology the company developed to run properties.

This slide shows how Placemakr’s short-term guests get a more comfortable stay, while long-term residents get the benefits of a hotel.

This slide shows how corporate clients come back, and how a supermajority of guests use Placemakr’s contactless check-in process.

This slide offers customer feedback, and highlights the company’s net promoter score, which is higher than traditional hotels.

This page shows Placemakr’s brands, including its original WhyHotel brand.

Placemakr

This slide sets up the section that introduces the company’s history.

Placemakr has managed more than 3,000 units in many of the country’s largest real estate markets.

It has also partnered with big names like Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and Fudin’s former employer, Vornado.

A typical slide that showcases the company’s executives.

Three of the company’s properties.

This section shows off the company’s performance to entice investors.

This slide shows that furnished units can almost quadruple revenue compared to an empty unit in a traditional lease.

This slide shows how the company outperforms nearby competitors, with up to 49% more daily revenue.

This slide shows how the company outperformed its competitors during COVID by switching to more long-term stays.

This final section shows the company’s future plans, and what it will do with the Series C funds.

This slide highlights nine reasons to invest in Placemakr. The transition to more flexible buildings is underway, and Placemakr is positioning itself as a leader.

This slide shows an exponential increase in booking value from the beginning of 2021 to the end of 2022.

The company is not planning to raise any more traditional VC funding, which means investors don’t need to worry about equity dilution. According to Placemakr, profitability is within reach.

The Placemakr team.

Decomplex

This real estate company helps developers pivot between hotel, short- and long-term living spaces. See the pitch deck behind its $65 million funding round.

This real estate company helps developers pivot between hotel, short- and long-term living spaces. See the pitch deck behind its $65 million funding round.

This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.

This slide kicks off the deck with a reminder that flexibility in real estate is good business.

The company is making bets on mixed-use, flexible properties. And it’s saying that those that don’t follow along will fall behind.

Buidlings often just have one, fixed use.

Placemakr claims that mixed-use buildings, like the one shown here, get more revenue than traditional buildings. The pandemic is amplifying that trend.

Demand for both short-term and long-term furnished rentals is burgeoning, according to the sources Placemakr is highlighting.

Placemakr is offering itself as a partner for investors who want to try out flexible buildings.

This slide sets up the section that explains Placemakr’s model.

Placemakr sits square in the middle of a venn diagram between multifamily and hotels. Apartment-style spaces can be booked for wide ranges of times.

This slide shows how the company’s product benefits from both sectors: higher revenue, and lower costs.

The company can also switch the makeup of a building based on seasonal or macroeconomic trends.

This slide shows multiple products that Placemakr offers, from operating or owning a property, to the pop-up operations it focused on in its WhyHotel days.

This page shows the technology the company developed to run properties.

This slide shows how Placemakr’s short-term guests get a more comfortable stay, while long-term residents get the benefits of a hotel.

This slide shows how corporate clients come back, and how a supermajority of guests use Placemakr’s contactless check-in process.

This slide offers customer feedback, and highlights the company’s net promoter score, which is higher than traditional hotels.

This page shows Placemakr’s brands, including its original WhyHotel brand.

This slide sets up the section that introduces the company’s history.

Placemakr has managed more than 3,000 units in many of the country’s largest real estate markets.

It has also partnered with big names like Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and Fudin’s former employer, Vornado.

A typical slide that showcases the company’s executives.

Three of the company’s properties.

This section shows off the company’s performance to entice investors.

This slide shows that furnished units can almost quadruple revenue compared to an empty unit in a traditional lease.

This slide shows how the company outperforms nearby competitors, with up to 49% more daily revenue.

This slide shows how the company outperformed its competitors during COVID by switching to more long-term stays.

This final section shows the company’s future plans, and what it will do with the Series C funds.

This slide highlights nine reasons to invest in Placemakr. The transition to more flexible buildings is underway, and Placemakr is positioning itself as a leader.

This slide shows an exponential increase in booking value from the beginning of 2021 to the end of 2022.

The company is not planning to raise any more traditional VC funding, which means investors don’t need to worry about equity dilution. According to Placemakr, profitability is within reach.

The Placemakr team.