D.C. coworking startup WorkChew Inc. has raised $2.5 million in seed funding.
The company, which turns hospitality centers into coworking spaces during nonpeak periods, said Wednesday the oversubscribed round will fund new hires, product development and marketing. Specifically, the three-person company is looking to hire six more people this year in sales and marketing, engineering and product roles, according to co-founder and CEO Maisha Burt.
Next up is ramping customer acquisition and adding locations across the U.S. The company's footprint already covers the District, Philadelphia and Chicago. But WorkChew intends to expand this year to New York, Miami, Atlanta, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle, Denver and Dallas, Burt said, declining to disclose revenue. The raise coincides with a growing demand for remote workforce support, as companies across the country surrender leases and reassess what their future footprints could look like.
“The pandemic pushed many organizations to become fully remote, and the experience has been better than many imagined,” Burt said in an email Wednesday. “As a result, a hybrid working model that embraces the best of both remote and office-based work awaits many workers and companies on the other side of the crisis. WorkChew is well-positioned to enable efficient, inclusive in-person engagement to help organizations maintain corporate culture and ensure workforce productivity.”
Harlem Capital led the raise, and Wilshire Lane Partners, Invictus Advisory Group, Techstars Ventures, and RW Capital Investments also participated. The round also included investments from angels Kathryn Petralia of Atlanta fintech company Kabbage Inc.; Chris Maguire of New York City-based e-commerce site Etsy Inc.; Kyle Tibbits of pre-seed fund Paradox Capital; and Alex Chan, formerly of Uber Technologies Inc.
Jarrid Tingle, managing partner of Harlem Capital, will join the company’s board as part of the firm’s investment. And Adam Demuyakor, managing partner of Wilshire Lane Partners, will serve as a board observer.
Burt launched WorkChew in late 2018 to connect remote employees, entrepreneurs and students with underutilized spaces via an online marketplace. The company offers a $50 monthly membership for individuals to book space via an app. In Greater Washington, that includes Pinstripes in Georgetown and North Bethesda, Viceroy and Yours Truly D.C. The company lists a slew of other local spots — Shaw’s Tavern, HalfSmoke, Bar Deco, Chaia, Cork and more — as “not available,” in the face of pandemic-related closures.
WorkChew’s model aims to do a few things: It provides the remote employee a place to work. It offers the employer a less pricey alternative to permanent office or coworking spaces. And it provides hospitality companies a new revenue stream — especially relevant as the pandemic has stripped many of pre-Covid volumes.
WorkChew drives patrons to those businesses, mainly hotels and restaurants, that receive 100% of the money made from selling food and drinks. And WorkChew fosters those sales, Burt said, aiming to help stimulate spending with a menu “known to entice hungry professionals to order while they are working.” It’s also a chance to convert new visitors to returning customers, she said.
WorkChew, meanwhile, generates revenue from a subscription model to corporations and individual members. That offering gives them access to its locations across the U.S.
Prior to this round, WorkChew had raised $125,000 from the Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs Accelerator, a 13-week program powered by Techstars — an opportunity Burt and co-founder Allyson McDougal said in September would be instrumental to the company’s rapid expansion. The company previously secured $100,000 from the Chicago-based Relish Works’ Food Foundry accelerator, Burt said, and was otherwise bootstrapped.
