Luxury Travel Club Inspirato Grabs Another $20 Million

Luxury vacation club Inspirato announced this morning it has secured $20 million in new funding from new investor W Capital Partners alongside existing investors Institutional Venture Partners and Millennium Technology Value Partners. The funding, designed to accelerate growth, brings the company’s total raise to date to $70 million.

The additional capital comes not quite a year after Inspirato’s expansion via its merger with competitor Portico Club, which was previously a part of Exclusive Resorts, a company Inspirato’s co-founders Brent and Brad Handler also founded but then sold to Steve Case, CEO of Revolution and founder of AOL.

The Handler brothers in 2011 returned to the vacation rental market in 2011 to create Inspirato, which combines the luxury vacation club model with peer-to-peer Airbnb-style listings. The basic cost to join Inspirato is $17,500, then afterwards its annual fee is $3,500, which puts it into the “luxury” market. Today, it counts just under 8,000 members – nearly double from July 2013. Meanwhile, its property portfolio includes 240 luxury homes in the U.S., Mexico, Europe and the Caribbean.

The company also last year inked a deal with AmEx that allowed cardmembers to get $2,500 off the initiation fee, and $400 off the annual dues.