Wheelhouse Spins out of Lyric With $16 Million in Funding Led by Highgate Ventures and NEA to Strengthen Leadership Position in Accommodation & Rental Software

Funding accompanies relaunch of revenue management & financial intelligence platform for the flex-rental space, and expansion from 42 countries to availability worldwide

SAN FRANCISCO , April 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Wheelhouse, the leading revenue management & financial intelligence software for the $500B+ flex-rental space, today announced it has spun out of parent company Lyric, and has raised $16M in funding led by NEA and Highgate Ventures.  Additional participation came from investors such as Signalfire, Fifth Wall, Tishman Speyer, 01 Advisors, Certares, RXR, and PAR Capital, plus numerous CEOs & industry leaders from the short-term rental, real estate & prop-tech space.

With this financing Wheelhouse will be able to accelerate the development of its award-winning revenue management platform, in order to empower hospitality teams to improve the revenue performance and scalability of their portfolios & businesses.

Today, Wheelhouse's platform empowers businesses that are building in new brands & businesses at the convergence of the accommodations ($1 trillion in annual revenue) and residential real estate space (a $265 trillion asset class).

Therefore, Wheelhouse's customer base manages listings ranging from single-family homes, to resorts, to multi-family buildings & even boutique hotels, all of whom are addressing the needs of a growing traveler demo that seeks short & mid-length (1 - 100+ days) accommodations, in spacious, furnished & amenity rich spaces.

"We believe travelers & residents alike will continue to seek flexible travel & rental options that enable them to live & work anywhere," said Andrew Kitchell, Wheelhouse founder & CEO. "Wheelhouse builds technology that helps businesses in our space thrive, so they can deliver unique & amazing experiences to the guests & residents who stay with them.  In 2021, we helped our customers increase revenue by an average of 21%, by improving both revenue from & the utilization of their spaces. With our new financing round, Wheelhouse is even better positioned to deliver professional operators the software & service-level they both need and deserve."

The funding news follows the recent launch of "Wheelhouse Worldwide," a data & software initiative that expanded Wheelhouse's presence from being available in major markets in 42 countries, to being available in any market, in 180+ countries.

In 2021, Wheelhouse Pro was named "Innovation of the Year" in 2021 at DARM (Data and Revenue Management), the industry's leading data & technology event.

With this financing, Wheelhouse will continue to invest in the tools & features to drive their core revenue management offering. 

In addition, Wheelhouse will focus development efforts on addressing the needs of larger clients, who continue to flock to Wheelhouse's scalable & easy-to-use platform.

And, Wheelhouse will expand investments into research & software that enables corporate & mid-length stay operators to maximize revenue from their portfolios. With the rapid rise of 30+ day to 10 month stays, Wheelhouse's unique pricing engine is perfectly positioned to help operators drive stronger performance from this increasingly important category.

"Wheelhouse shares our enthusiasm for maintaining strong conviction for cutting-edge innovation – despite overwhelming challenges," said Rick Yang, general partner, New Enterprise Associates. "Their technology and collaborative approach have a lot of potential for the future generation of rental tech. We're excited to work with Wheelhouse on their mission to produce category-defining software."

In 2021, Wheelhouse experienced 150% growth, partly based on their success in being named "Innovation of the Year" as voted by their major target clients - large, short-term rental operators.

In addition to its SMB & enterprise customers, Wheelhouse also now powers more than 12 software products via its pricing & demand-alert APIs.

"With this financing behind us, Wheelhouse is positioned to deliver category-defining software to our customers in 2022 and beyond," said Kitchell. "In Q1 of this year, our product team shipped 30+ new product enhancements in just 90 days. Now, we're positioned to scale our product team, in order to further develop our category's most trusted & powerful pricing & financial intelligence platform."

About Wheelhouse
Wheelhouse is a remote-first team founded in San Francisco in 2014. From its inception the company has developed premier software & operations teams in the short-term rental space. Currently the company is focused on delivering pricing & financing intelligence software to empower professional operators in the short-term, flex, & mid-length rental categories - the fastest growing segment of accommodations. www.usewheelhouse.com

About NEA
New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) is a global venture capital firm focused on helping entrepreneurs build transformational businesses across multiple stages, sectors and geographies. With nearly $24 billion in cumulative committed capital since the firm's founding in 1977, NEA invests in technology and healthcare companies at all stages in a company's lifecycle, from seed stage through IPO. The firm's track record of investing includes more than 260 portfolio company IPOs and more than 430 mergers and acquisitions. www.nea.com

SOURCE Wheelhouse