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Selina has raised $195.0M across 2 funding rounds.
Key people at Selina.
Selina has raised $195.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Selina operates as a global hospitality brand, providing a unique blend of accommodation types, including custom-designed hotels and hostels, integrated with co-working spaces, wellness programs, and local experiences. Its offerings cater to the evolving demands of modern travelers by fostering community and flexibility, enabling guests to live, work, and explore. The company strategically combines design-led spaces with comprehensive services to create an ecosystem for digital nomads and remote workers.
The company was co-founded in 2015 by Rafael Museri and Daniel Rudasevski. Their insight stemmed from recognizing a significant gap in the hospitality market for a brand that could genuinely serve the distinct needs and desires of younger generations, particularly millennials and Gen Z. They envisioned a concept that transcended traditional hotel stays, focusing instead on immersive, connected experiences tailored to a global, mobile lifestyle.
Selina primarily serves a demographic of millennial and Gen Z travelers who seek flexibility, community, and authentic local immersion. The company’s long-term vision is to empower individuals to integrate travel and work seamlessly, making it feasible to live, work, and explore cultures across the globe. It aims to be the leading platform for this generation's global mobility, continually adapting its model to support a fluid, boundary-less lifestyle.
Selina has raised $195.0M across 2 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $100.0M Series C in April 2019.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 24, 2019 | $100M Series C | Lincoln Benet | Grupo Wiese | Announced |
| Apr 1, 2018 | $95M Series B | The Abraaj Group | Adam Neumann | Announced |
Key people at Selina.
Selina has raised $195.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Selina's investors include Lincoln Benet, Grupo Wiese, The Abraaj Group, Adam Neumann.
Selina is a hospitality and co-living brand targeting millennial and Gen Z travelers, offering accommodations blended with coworking spaces, recreation, wellness, and local experiences in revamped buildings across urban and remote locations.[3] Founded in 2014 and headquartered in London, it positioned itself at the intersection of travel, remote work, and digital nomadism, expanding to over 150 properties in 25 countries while employing 3,000+ people; however, it faced financial collapse by entering administration due to insolvency after failing to pay interest on loans, following heavy fundraising and a 2022 SPAC listing that raised $1.2 billion, much of which was depleted.[1][2][3]
The company serves nomadic travelers seeking "stay, play, and work from anywhere" options, solving the problem of combining affordable lodging with productivity tools like dedicated workspaces and tech-enabled booking platforms.[1][3] Despite early growth riding remote work trends, its aggressive scaling in real estate-heavy hospitality led to consistent operating losses, culminating in ceding control to administrators.[1]
Selina was founded in 2014, starting in Central and South America before expanding to Europe (Portugal, Greece, UK, Austria), the Middle East (Israel), North America (US), and Australia.[1][2][3] It emerged amid rising digital nomadism, designing properties with local artists to breathe new life into existing buildings while integrating coworking—a novel blend for the hospitality sector.[3]
Key pivots included acquiring Remote Year in 2020 to bolster its remote work focus amid COVID challenges, and going public via SPAC in 2022, raising $1.2 billion after securing over $500 million in prior funding.[1] Early traction came from millennial appeal, earning Forbes' "Digital Nomad Hotel of the Future" billing, but financial red flags persisted as it chased tech-like growth in a conservative industry.[1]
Selina rode the explosive growth of digital nomadism and remote work post-2020, capitalizing on trends like flexible lifestyles and blurred work-travel boundaries amid COVID shifts.[1] Its timing aligned with venture hype around "tech-enabled" hospitality, raising hundreds of millions despite the sector's real estate risks, influencing how startups approached scaling lifestyle brands via SPACs and apps.[1]
Market forces like surging tourism recovery and nomad visas favored it initially, but overleveraging (e.g., debt to bodies like the Inter-American Development Bank) exposed vulnerabilities in applying high-growth tech models to asset-light, operationally intensive hospitality.[1] It highlighted ecosystem risks: over $500 million raised nearly vanished, underscoring investor caution in travel-tech hybrids and prompting scrutiny of digital nomadism's sustainability amid economic pressures.[1]
Selina's insolvency marks a cautionary tale of overexpansion in nomad hospitality, with administrators now controlling its fate amid massive debt—recovery hinges on restructuring or asset sales.[1] Emerging trends like sustained remote work, AI-driven travel personalization, and economic volatility could revive leaner versions, but competition from platforms like Airbnb and WeWork remnants challenges it.
Its influence may evolve toward fragmented properties or brand licensing, tying back to its origins: a visionary nomad hub that scaled too fast, reminding the ecosystem that tech flair alone doesn't conquer real estate realities.[1]
