Master Key is a publication by Anne Marie Brown of The Upgrade Weekly for paid subscribers. Master Key is an MBA-level look at the economics and mechanics of the travel and hospitality industry, from your favorite hospitality insider.
🗝️ Master Key - MARKET ANALYSIS - The Five-Year Hospitality IPO Reckoning
What the 2021 listing class got wrong, and what the market pays for a travel company today
In February 2022, Inspirato started trading on the Nasdaq at a valuation of roughly $1.1 billion. I watched my IG feed fill with triumphant posts of my former colleagues ringing the bell in New York. I ran their experiential travel and bespoke custom travel departments after business school, and worked at their sister company, Exclusive Resorts, before my MBA. That’s likely why I followed that ticker more closely than I usually follow a small-cap subscription company.
In December 2025, Exclusive Investments LLC agreed to buy the whole thing at $4.27 a share, about $59 million fully diluted.¹ The deal closed in February 2026.² For a per-share comparison: Inspirato didn't IPO at a clean per-share price since it came public via SPAC merger, but the stock did trade above $10 in the weeks after the February 2022 listing before grinding down to the $4.27 buyout price, which is itself its own steep decline on top of the valuation collapse (dilution from repeated capital raises means the valuation drop and the share price drop aren't the same math, but both tell the same story).
That’s the story of the last five years of hospitality on the public markets, told through one company.
I’m a luxury travel advisor, agency owner, and managing director of a real estate and hospitality investment fund. We invest in several VC and PE funds, including ones focused on hospitality and travel technology. Putting on my investor hat, the 2021 and 2022 class of hospitality IPOs was overvalued, badly. Those companies were priced on a story their operating models couldn’t execute, and the correction arrived.
I hope you enjoy this week’s Master Key about the IPO market for travel and hospitality -
Anne Marie Brown
The Hospitality IPO Class of 2021 and 2022
Soho House listed in July 2021 as Membership Collective Group, pricing at $14 a share and raising $420 million. Membership grew, but profitability didn’t follow. In August 2025, an investor group led by MCR’s Tyler Morse agreed to buy the outstanding shares at $9.00 in cash, valuing the business at about $2.7 billion including debt.³ Apollo financed the deal, Goldman Sachs Alternatives rolled its position and added equity, and Ron Burkle’s Yucaipa rolled its controlling stake to keep majority control.³ The take-private closed in January 2026.