Luxury Travel Startup Inspirato Looking At $1 Billion SPAC Merger

Luxury travel startup Inspirato has potential plans to go public through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), Bloomberg reports.

The Denver-based company is talking with Thayer Ventures about a deal, according to anonymous sources, although terms could change and the deal might collapse.

Inspirato was co-founded by brothers Brent and Brad Handler, and they released the “Inspirato Pass” in 2019, allowing customers to book unlimited stays in luxury vacation homes and legacy five-star brands like the Ritz Carlton for prices starting at around $2,500 a month with no extra fees.

There’s another membership plan for $600 that gives access to club member properties, though users then have to pay additional rates per night.

Inspirato was doing well in spite of the pandemic last year, with the company seeing booking rates up 30 percent year over year.

The company has over 18,000 members who can choose from 1,200 vacation options in over 395 destinations. Some of the company’s investors include Kleiner Perkins, IVP and Revolution.

The Thayer Ventures SPAC is co-helmed by CEOs Mark Farrell and Chris Hemmeter, who have raised $172.5 million in a December initial public offering and plan to keep raising money to focus on the travel and transportation sectors. The firm is associated with the company Thayer Ventures, which focused on the same aforementioned industries.

The portfolio for Thayer includes Sonder, the short-term rental specialist, travel search site Hipmunk, and hotel revenue management software maker Duetto, Bloomberg reports.

The travel industry took a hit during the pandemic, with its $1.1 trillion in losses at the close of books in 2020 representing a 42 percent contraction from the previous year.

But outlooks have improved since that time, with the numbers from various surveys indicating around 71 percent of American adults now feel more hopeful about the prospects of traveling in the coming year. The vaccines coming out have played a role, and United Airlines has announced a recent plan to hire hundreds of pilots.