For people who want to book a house near Joshua Tree National Park and get away from it all but still have ultra-fast Wi-Fi, Wander has a place.
Wander allows people to get lost in the desert but still have all of the amenities of a smart home for the perfect work-from-home vacation.
Austin-based Wander launched just nine months ago and raised a seed round of funding six months ago. Last week, the company announced it has raised a $20 million round.
QED Investors led the Series A round with participation from Redpoint Ventures, Authentic Ventures, Fifthwall, Susa Ventures, Kevin Durant and Rich Kleiman’s Thirty Five Ventures, Packy McCormack, Sahil Bloom, Todd & Rahul’s Angel Fund, Alumni Ventures, Vibe Capital, al16z and others.
To date, Wander has raised $27 million. It plans to use the funding to expand its portfolio of properties, hire more employees, and product development.
The company is focused on catering to the more than 20 million professionals whose jobs in the U.S. are projected to become fully remote by the end of 2022.
The number of people worldwide who can work fully remotely continues to grow and they need infrastructure to support them especially when they travel. And that’s where Wander comes in. The company owns all of the homes on its platform which means it can deliver high-quality, smart technology in great locations.
When guests check in to one of Wander’s smart homes, they can control everything through the mobile phone app including opening the door and turning on the lights.
And each Wander home comes with a Tesla. It can also be accessed through the mobile phone app.
“Our goal is to build the infrastructure to experience the world,” John Andrew Entwistle, founder and CEO of Wander, said in a news release. “We’re scaling rapidly to meet the demand of our more than 30,000 community members, with dozens more properties coming soon. We’re already seeing our vision for the future take shape.”
Wander currently offers stays at its California properties in Joshua Tree, Lake Tahoe and Mendocino County and Oregon properties in Port Orford and Bandon Dunes, with dozens more coming across the United States this year. In addition to its growing waitlist, the company also has the support of more than 2,000+ Founding Members, many of whom participated in the latest funding round as angel investors.
“While we hopefully return to ‘normal’ in 2022, flexibility and remote work seems to be a common theme,” QED Partner Chuckie Reddy said in a news release. “After two years of being restricted from travel and exploring new places, it has become clear how important it is to have a change of scenery from time to time. Blending those two things together in one extraordinary experience is exactly what Wander is all about. People are living busier lives than ever — when they spend time to travel, it should be perfect.”