Placemakr

Placemakr (formerly known as WhyHotel) offers a platform for long- and short-term apartment rentals in the US for regular and corporate travel purposes. Placemakr offers accommodation under four brands: Placemakr (its signature line of properties), Placemakr Premier (its premium line of properties), a Placemakr experience (provides additional amenities), and WhyHotel by Placemakr (pop-up hotels). Each space features a kitchen, washing machine, smart TV, and other amenities. For real estate management, Placemakr enters long-term agreements with property owners to operate their entire buildings as part of the Placemakr platform. For pop-up hotels, Placemakr partners with developers to monetize their vacancy during the lease-up phase of newly constructed apartment buildings. During this temporary phase, Placemakr operates 25%–45% of a building's units as furnished rentals for stays ranging from one night to one year. The profit generated during this period is shared between Placemakr and the developers. Per month rentals range from ~USD 3,000–18,000 based on location and amenities provided. As of August 2024, Placemakr operated 16 branded properties across the US in Nashville, Columbia, New York, San Jose, and Washington. Further, the company launched its real estate investment arm in 2021 and has since acquired USD 250 million of property in partnership with institutional equity partners and lenders.

Key customers and partnerships

Placemakr partnered with Maymount University in September 2022 to launch Placemakr Marymount Ballston, a mixed-use hospitality and residential property next to Marymount's Ballston Center campus. Previous partnerships include that with MRP Realty, Kruger Real Estate, and May Riegler (in July 2022, to create Coda on Half, a boutique-style apartment building designed to blend residential and hospitality use in Washington), community oriented art platform Alpha’a (in July 2021, to curate artwork collections across WhyHotel’s portfolio of pop-up hotels), Meridian Group (in May 2021, to create high-end, service-oriented residential living at Meridian's Rise and Bolden Apartments in The Boro) and Bernstein Management Corporation and Urban Atlantic (to acquire an office building on K Street in DC and convert it into a hotel-apartment hybrid property).