Skift Take
Will Vacasa and Sonder have the wherewithal as public companies to build their own brands independent of relying on Google and Airbnb, and will their business model challenges be surmountable? There's a ton of potential and so much work ahead for each of the companies.
Property manager Vacasa and hybrid short-term rental and hotel operator Sonder both have a lot to prove as they ready to go public through mergers with special purpose acquisition companies in 2021.
To be sure, both companies have lots of upside potential but they will have to show critics that their business model challenges will not be too daunting. Of course, business models can often get revamped as circumstances demand.
The bigger of the two public market debuts — and the timing is uncertain although both aim for 2021 — would be for Vacasa, which would have a $4.5 billion enterprise value, while Sonder hopes to go public at a $2.2 billion market cap.
Both of these market values would be humble in the context of Airbnb's $96 billion valuation, but Fort Walton Beach, Florida, where Vacasa managed about 36 percent of the listings on Airbnb as of June 2020, and Chicago, Dallas and Detroit, where urban-oriented Sonder operates accommodations, weren't built in a day.
Both companies pitch themselves a
