Night Inn 🍾

Setting the Scene

• Businesses and brands spend billions on outsourced hospitality activations and services, yet struggle to connect with high-quality talent.

• Challenges include:

  • Identifying top-tier chefs, sommeliers, mixologists, and entertainers.

  • Booking difficulties due to inconsistent communication and diverse vendor requirements.

  • Operational inefficiencies such as a lack of standardized processes and scheduling conflicts.

• This week’s company provides a freelance marketplace connecting hospitality talent with clients.

In a Sentence

Night Inn is a centralized marketplace to find freelance hospitality talent for elevated experiences.

• Centralized: The all-in-one platform streamlines communication and operations, ensuring efficient processes from experience building to client booking to payments.

• Elevated: Night Inn connects top-tier hospitality talent like chefs and sommeliers to corporate businesses, allowing professionals to run a lucrative freelance business outside of their bars and restaurants.

The Basics

• Industry: Marketplace, Hospitality 

• Headquarters: New York, NY

• Year Founded: 2021

• Employee Count: 2

• Investors: Riverside Ventures, TBD Angel Syndicate, Various Hospitality Angels

• Amount Raised: $200k angel round

• Business Model: 20% take rate on all bookings

• Early Traction: $618K GMV in 2023, $117K net revenue, forecasting $1.5M GMV in 2024, 85% retention for real estate clients, 50% for corporate clients​​ which include Blackrock and Deloitte

Due Diligence

WHAT WE LIKE

• Market: The U.S. corporate events market is valued at over $100B, with trends shifting toward a freelance economy, as 39% of the US workforce is already participating.

• Lucrative for Talent: Night Inn’s early talent on the platform earns significantly more than working traditional restaurant hours, even after the 20% take rate

  • This addresses the income volatility faced by 49% of nightlife professionals, 58% of whom have more than one income source​​.

• Solving Talent Discovery: Night Inn addresses a significant problem by providing a streamlined platform for businesses to find and book top-tier hospitality talent, which is typically fragmented and hard to access​​.

POTENTIAL RISKS

• Niche: Night Inn’s business model is booking-dependent, which, given the company’s niche focus, could limit explosive growth and predictive revenue.

• Limited Reach: While Night Inn offers a valuable service, its corporate user base may not yield the network effects needed for rapid expansion across geographies.

• Luxury: As a luxury service for B2B and high-end clients, Night Inn’s offerings could be among the first to be cut during economic downturns or corporate budget cuts.

Founder Profiles

• Mike Wolkon, CEO: Previously at Xandr, Deloitte, and Microsoft.

• Rena Ogura, CPO: Previously at Deloitte.

Comps

• Experiences: Part of Airbnb.

• Peek: Backed by Great Oaks Venture Capital, Velo Partners, 12BF Global Ventures, SV Angel.

• Viator: Backed by Technology Venture Partners, Carlyle Global Partners.

See You Tonight

• Tonight we will be welcoming 1000+ founders and funders to connect in NYC.

• Hundreds of logos have already been submitted to be featured on the massive billboard in the center of the venue.

• Thank you to our sponsors for powering this event and the Bulletpitch community: Fidelity, Google Cloud, Citizens Private Bank, Polsinelli, and Insomnia Club.

  • You can learn more about how our sponsors position startups for success here.

• If you are NYC based and haven’t already signed up, it’s not too late!

Cast Your Vote

Last Week Today

• The results are in: Bucephalus, an AI platform poised to overhaul outdated supply chain systems used by retailers and CPG brands, was favored in last week’s poll.

• Subscriber feedback: “Love the concept but can’t figure out how to pronounce the name of the company.”