ApartmentJet
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
ApartmentJet developed software enabling landlords and tenants to manage short-term rentals.
02 / ApartmentJet FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
ApartmentJet did not fail as an independent company — it was acquired by Expedia Group in October 2018 for a combined ~$54 million with Pillow, and ceased to exist on its own. The ending came afterwards, at the acquirer: after merging ApartmentJet and Pillow with staff from Vrbo into Expedia Group Multifamily solutions (rebranded as the Flex platform), Expedia wound down the entire multifamily short-term rental business in 2020 as part of its pandemic-era reorganization. The decisive factors were therefore post-acquisition strategic re-prioritization, a corporate reorganization during the COVID-19 crisis that crushed short-term rental demand, and the combined unit never reaching meaningful scale inside Expedia.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Operations ended
ApartmentJet ended operations.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
On October 25, 2018, Expedia Group announces the acquisition of ApartmentJet (a Chicago startup founded 2016, with ~$1.2 million disclosed funding) and Pillow for a combined ~$54 million.
- 02
The two startups are merged with staff from Expedia's Vrbo subsidiary to create Expedia Group Multifamily solutions, later rebranded as Flex (Flexible Living Platform), targeting short-term rental bookings in apartment buildings.
- 03
In May 2020, Expedia Group winds down the multifamily building short-term rental business as part of its reorganization efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- 04
Co-founder Kevin Koperski later publishes a first-hand account of the company's full arc, 'From Concept to Covid', noting the business was started in 2016, sold in 2018, and ceased to exist by 2020.