Wander just announced a fresh $50 million Series B round led by QED and Fifth Wall, with participation from Redpoint, Uncork, Starwood Capital, Authentic, Breyer Capital, and others.
The company is now managing over 1,000 properties—a 14x year-over-year increase—and onboarding over $1 billion worth of real estate each month. But the story behind those numbers is where things get interesting.
The 3-property origin story
Wander launched in 2021 with a simple premise: deliver the reliability of a luxury hotel and the warmth of a beautifully designed home. The company calls this “hotelification” of vacation homes.
They began with just three properties, each equipped with a Tesla and integrated smart home controls—managed through the Wander app. Their approach was vertically integrated from day one: Wander owned the homes, designed them, managed operations, and controlled the full guest experience.
The benefit? They had total control and brand consistency.
The downside? Cost and speed. Scaling with owned real estate meant every new property required time, capital, and renovation.
The REIT era: scaling supply without the balance sheet headaches
In 2022, Wander launched Wander Atlas, the first vacation rental REIT, letting investors buy into a strictly STR real estate portfolio.
The structure gave Wander capital to grow while moving property ownership off its own balance sheet—without sacrificing control of the properties. Since Wander still managed every home, it preserved the brand’s hallmark: a five-star guest experience.
It was a smart move. But the timing was brutal.
Just as the REIT launched in October 2022, interest rates spiked and real estate transactions slowed to a crawl. With good acquisition opportunities drying up, Wander shut the REIT down.
It’s worth underscoring: the decision to shutter the REIT wasn’t about performance – investors reportedly earned a 22% return over two years. The key takeaway: Wander’s STR portfolio was crushing it—occupancy was between 80–90%, and guest satisfaction (measured by Net Promoter Score) was also in the 80–90 range.
The experiment continued to validate the concept. The only problem? Asset ownership wasn’t the fastest way to scale.
The Pivot to an asset-light model
In May 2023, Wander introduced Wander Managed (now Wander Operated). The model was simple: Wander takes full control of a property via a management agreement, upgrades it with its signature amenities, and handles everything—cleaning, repairs, guest experience, distribution.
Owners pay the mortgage and expenses, and Wander takes a revenue share from each booking.
This gave Wander the ability to scale quickly. But it raised the question: could they maintain hotel-like consistency without actually owning the asset?
So far, the answer has been yes.
Next came Wander Branded, a lighter-touch model where owners keep control of the operations, but Wander handles distribution, bookings, guest communication, and OTA channel optimization.
Branded owners may list their homes on other booking sites like Airbnb, or their own, and Wander takes 12% commission on bookings through Wander, and 3% for bookings generated through other channels.
The result? A tiered operating model that meets owners where they are—without compromising on experience.
The Numbers & Whats Next:
As of April 2025, Wander has:
- 1,000+ locations (14x growth YoY)
- 82% direct booking rate
- 92% customer satisfaction
- 9.3/10 average trip rating
- 27% repeat booking rate
- NPS of 85 — far ahead of Airbnb (24), Vrbo (6), and Marriott (17), per Wander investor Packy McCormick
That last number is critical: even after moving away from full ownership, customer satisfaction actually increased.
With $50 million in fresh capital, Wander plans to double down on both sides of the business:
- Supply: Expanding its managed and branded models to more properties and partners
- Tech: Investing in WanderOS, its proprietary AI operating system designed to deliver hotel-level consistency at scale
Wander seems to be firing on all cylinders. They’ve solved for quality and scale—two of the hardest problems in hospitality. Watching what comes next will be exciting and is worth tracking closely.
