# misterb&b

Largest LGBTQ travel community in the world

## Elevator pitch
misterb&b empowers the LGBTQ community to travel more safely, feel welcome & get local insider tips wherever they go. We're the largest online community of LGBTQ travelers with 1 million accommodation providing a welcoming and safe environment in 200 countries (private rooms, appartements, LGBTQ friendly hotels). With more than $15M+ raised institutionally, we want to offer once again our loyal community and supporters the opportunity to own a part of the company.

- Canonical URL: https://wefunder.com/misterbandb
- Entity ID: wefunder:company:30986
- Last updated: 2026-06-04T05:02:09Z
- Generated at: 2026-06-04T07:57:50Z

## Quick facts
- 1 million LGBTQ friendly accommodations in 200 countries
- 20% month over month growth thanks to the 2019 Wefunder round
- 1st LGBTQ app selected 2X by Apple as “App of the day” (2018 & 2019)
- $15M transaction volume in 2019. In 2020, we expected $30M with our new hotel offering, pre-COVID
- Joel Simkhai (Grindr founder, sold for $300M USD) early investor. 
- Profitability planned in 2020 before Covid-19. Positive EBITDA in July 2020
- Rated 4.3/5 on Google Store & 4.7/5 on Apple Store
- We give back to the LGBTQ community through our mister for good program

## Active fundraises
- wefunder:fundraise:35156: 4(a)(6) successful (USD)
- wefunder:fundraise:28341: 506(c) successful (USD)
- wefunder:fundraise:21801: 4(a)(6) successful (USD)

## Story
The mission behind misterb&b is to help our community travel safe, connect and feel welcome everywhere they go. In 2020, faced with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, we managed to act early and to make sure we would weather this storm. While doing so, we were able to live up to our values as we helped LGBTQ young adults find emergency housing away from their homophobic families during lockdowns. “Without this help, I don’t know where I would be today”, says Dimitri, 20 yo.The desire to travel and connect, exploring and discovering are basic human needs. With short-term rentals and now LGBTQ friendly hotels thanks to our successful 2019 Wefunder round, we are getting ready for the recovery of the travel industry. Our fundamentals put us in a very strong position to thrive once the world recovers, as our story below shows. One of the co-founders facing discrimination with his partnerIn 2013, Matthieu Jost (picture below) booked a private room in Barcelona with his partner. When they got there, it was clear the host didn’t feel comfortable hosting a gay couple. The weekend turned into the most awkward travel experience. Jost started misterb&b so that no one from the LGBTQ community would ever experience that againMatthieu (ceo)misterb&b is a website that exclusively lists LGBTQ-friendly accommodations around the world. Individuals (LGBTQ folks as well as straight allies) can list rooms or apartments for rent. Nightly rates are determined by hosts. misterb&b also lists booking options at local gay-owned or gay-friendly hotels (you can toggle the hotel option on or off when you search).The service is currently live in more than 200 countries. misterb&b not only offers that you will be able to find a safe and LGBQT-friendly space to stay, but also that you’ll be able to connect with other travelers, meet and get travel tips from others in the LGBTQ community when you travel.Facing Discrimination (again) While FundraisingThe company was launched in France. But when we needed funds to fuel our growth, we couldn’t find support from local VCs: obviously, serving the LGBTQ market was an insurmountable handicap for this financial community.We eventually decided to move the company to Silicon Valley. Pitching misterb&b became so much easier, no need to justify the LGBTQ market anymore. We closed a series of seed rounds for $2M in early 2015. Joining 500 Startups and Kicking off Growth We joined Batch 12 of 500 Startups, one of the 3 best accelerator programs in the world, in San Francisco in early 2015. That was definitely a milestone. After Demo Day, misterb&b was one of the 6 companies (out of 20 in our batch) to receive an investment from 500 Startups. We exited the 4 months program with $2.5M USD new money in the bank and… an award for Best Pitch!Successful Series A round in 2017In 2017, we raised $8.5M in our Series A round and that same year, we reached 1 million USD in transactions per month. This round helped us to scale our marketing, our tech/back offices and for sure, our team. misterb&b teamLGBTQ App of the day on the App store in 2018In June 2018, for Pride, Apple featured misterb&b as App of the Day in their App store. We were the first gay app named App of the Day. And that's because Apple believed in our mission and purpose and were willing to associate their brand with ours. Apple featured us again in 2019 as App of the Day.In 2019, 1st LGBTQ company to raise $1M on a crowdfunding campaignAfter being funded by institutional money, we decided to empower our community of hosts and travelers even more by launching a special crowdfunding round on Wefunder and give them the opportunity to own a piece of the company and take part in its success. We wanted to build equality into the sharing economy and give back to a community that’s been historically economically marginalized providing our community with the power of part ownership of the company.”LGBTQ friendly hotels: Delivering on our promise to Wefunder Investors with 20% growth MoM.After closing our Wefunder round, everything accelerated. We hired developers to work on implementing our LGBQ hotel offering. This was a big challenge due to complexity of this type of business (API for live calls on availability and pricing, A/B testing, algorithm tweaks etc.). We also added a social layer on the LGBTQ friendly hotel service allowing our guests and hosts to connect and discover who will be staying in the same hotel/city to explore the city together. It was a 6 month technical project. Then we kicked off marketing. By the end of Q1, we were growing bookings 20% month over month, until the global pandemic hit. LGBTQ Hotel Gaythering MiamiWeathering the Covid-19 stormThe desire to travel and connect is a basic need, exploring and discovering is part of who we are as humans. Traveling might be different after the coronavirus pandemic but our fundamentals put us in a very strong position to thrive once the world recovers. We have been able to scale down our expenses (4X less) and are ready to scale up as travel bounces back. This new round is to develop a Safety protocol and technical solution to help our guests and hosts navigate through this unexpected event. It will also help to rekick off our growth efforts.How you will help us continue our mission for the LGBTQ communityAt misterb&b we believe in people, purpose and profit. We supported Le Refuge, a French non-profit helping find short term housing for LGBTQ young adults in crisis, through our Mister for Good program before Covid-19 so it was only natural that we would assist during the Covid-19 crisis. For some young members of the community, being forced to stay home 24/7 with their homophobic families turned out to be very toxic, sometimes violent and finding a safe place for them was essential.After reaching out to our community, many misterb&b hosts answered our call for help, and offered their accommodations to LGBTQ teens in crisis for free. Thanks to their solidarity, we have been able to provide emergency housing for almost a dozen young people. “Without this help, I don’t know where I would be today”, says Dimitri, 20 yo, grateful for this partnership with misterb&bIn addition we reached out to our local host community and found places for doctors, nurses, and other medical professions to stay while they worked on the front lines of the health crisis. This lessened the risk to their family at home.Stronger together - why we need you more than ever todaymisterb&b is not just another Online Travel Agency (OTA) or booking engine in the travel market. Our mission is to help our community travel safe, connect and feel welcome everywhere they go. This service has now become very important to even more LGTBQ travelers.Why another Wefunder round? Our first crowdfunding went way beyond our expectations, on so many levels. Among other things, we managed to build a network of LGBTQ and LGBTQ-friendly investors who are now our advocates around the world. Some of them contributed on specific topics, showing us the strength of the community and the importance and relevance of our purpose. It also created an emotional bond between the community and the company. As this 2019 Wefunder round was oversubscribed, we thought another round would be a great opportunity for those who were not able to join.We are a for-profit business and we strongly believe that having a successful business is key to strengthening our community: hiring LGBTQ employees across our 3 offices, demonstrating that a LGBTQ business can be successful, and inspiring others to succeed and helping people in need.We’re looking forward to welcoming you to our team of investors! Your support will help us adapt the company to the “new normal” while giving back to the community: with you, we’ll help hosts and guests overcome their fear of traveling, help hosts earn much needed income from their spare space, and we’ll find our way back to our strong growth and continue our mission & purpose for our community.

## FAQ
1. **How dis tou détermine thé 35mion USD valuation ?**
   - The valuation is determined by business growth, gross market volume (GMV), other key performance indicators, and last round valuation (series A).
2. **When is the deadline to invest ?**
   - April 30th 2019 but the sooner the better if you want to be sure to secure a spot
3. **Why is the UK and Canada excluded from investing?**
   - The one exception is the Province of Quebec, which requested that we bar their residents from investing.
4. **How will dividends / profit sharing happen ? What are the US IRS implications ?**
   - Hi Bri, misterb&b will send Wefunder one lump sum when the first payout is due and we will disburse it to the investors. ACH transfers for US investors and Wire transfers for international investors. You shouldn't have to provide tax documents annually unless (until) the note converts or is paid back. At that time you'll either have to provide a k1 (if it converts to equity) or 1099 (if you pay back principal and interest)
5. **What do I get in return for my $100 investment or is it merely a charitable donation?**
   - Hi Kevin, Interest rate of the amount invested and then upon conversion, shares in the company.

## Team
- Matthieu Jost (CEO)
- François de Landes de Saint Palais (COO)
- Marc Dedonder (CCO)
- Anissa Truchet (CMO)
- Jean Bourcereau (Board Member)
- Anthony Bazhuhin (CTO)
- Anton Waitz (Board Member)
- Arnaud Houvet (Head of Operations)

## Q&A
- Q: misterb&b, do you have ant updates for your investors?
  - A: Hey Rory, the updates are published twice a year here on our Wefunder page. One was published on Jan 26, 2020, the next one on June 3, 2020. You should always come to this page and click the "updates" tab in the navigation bar. Thanks a lot.
- Q: I have never heard from management after closing its fundraising efforts regarding what’s next and/or investor’s investment. What’s going on?
  - A: Hi, you can find updates about the company in the update section once you log in. We are posting regular updates on this page
- Q: Hey! Any updates? Very long silence. Too long.
  - A: Hey Pablo, the updates are published twice a year here on our Wefunder page. One was published on Jan 26, 2020, the next one on June 3, 2020. You should always come to this page and click the "updates" tab in the navigation bar. Thanks a lot.
- Q: Guys people are asking for updates? Shouldn’t you answer each single question posted here? I see a lot of missing answers to the same question: I have invested money. What happens next? Other than your silence? Cmon You can do better.
  - A: Hey Riccardo, the updates are published twice a year here on our Wefunder page. One was published on Jan 26, 2020, the next one on June 3, 2020. You should always come to this page and click the "updates" tab in the navigation bar. Thanks a lot.
- Q: How do I receive confirmation of my investment? I made an investment in July. What is the status?
  - A: Hi Linda, I invite you to reach out to wefunder if you have any question (support@wefunder.com) but your signed agreement is in your wefunder account.
- Q: What’s going on with this company? Never heard anything from I invest.
  - A: Hi, you can find updates about the company in the update section once you log in? We are posting regular updates on this page
- Q: So glad I didn't "invest" more than I did because it seems like I just made a donation. The notes supposedly converted last year, in which case we should have at least been paid out the interest for the 3 years. BUT.. silence from misterbnb and only generic responses to "check updates". Wefunder support giving me generic responses and refusing to look into the situation further. Huge SCAM!
  - A: Hi Shannan, I'm Merc and I am the Head of Investor Success here at Wefunder. Sofia messaged me to let me know you had concerns about your investment in MisterB&B. First, I'd like to clear up some confusion. Your investment with MisterB&B converted on February 15, 2022. This information was sent out by MisterB&B last year. I have included the specifics of your investment and it's conversion in your email as it has information that is for you privately. I read your message on TrustPilot and the message you posted on the MisterB&B raise page. Although you might feel that you should have been paid out the interest, that isn't how the process works necessarily. I can't provide investment advice to you legally, but in general, a convertible note can be beneficial because it gives the you - the investor - the potential to receive more than just the interest payments and the original capital. It is actually the spirit of convertible notes to convert - not just get back what you invested and a little bit of interest. The notes are designed to convert into equity of a company at a later date, usually when the company achieves a certain milestone such as a financing event or IPO. Depending on the terms of the note, the investor may have their note convert into equity (which is what happened here) allowing you to participate in the upside of the business. As the value of a company grows, the value of those shares that you have now also grows - making it possible for you to make more money than you would have gotten with just a repayment of your investment with interest. You also claimed that Wefunder refused to look into the situation further, yet Sofia replied and told that she would look into this and would get back to you with more information. Can you explain how she made you believe that she wasn't willing to help further? I can completely sympathize with wanting to better understand how your investment works no matter how much you invested, why the lead investor (who also has an interest for the investments to do well as it will benefit them since they have a large piece in the game) would make the decisions they do, and why it takes so long for a return to happen. The average time line on getting an ROI (IF it happens) is about 3-7 years. This is the private market - much different than the public market. As your convertible note has already converted, you are already on your way to bigger possibilities with your investment if things work in your favor. Investing in startups is very risky. We encourage investors to only invest what you can afford to lose; do not invest so much that it would impact your lifestyle or retirement plans. Every investment listed on Wefunder is much riskier than a public company listed on the stock market and it is entirely possible that you will lose every dollar you invest on Wefunder. I'm happy to help you going forward and help answer your questions and concerns. You can email me at merc@wefunder.com. Best, Merc Head of Investor Success Wefunder, Inc.
- Q: Hi, I am interested to invest money. If I understand well, all investors will become shareholders? Where the ownership structure could be seen and what are your expectations about IPO? Thanks
- Q: What type of shares are these? The advert offers 3% interest plus unspecified extras. What rights are attached?
  - A: Hi David. All rights are specified in our convertible note. I invite you to download it
- Q: Dear team of MisterB&B, as an early investor, I would like your company to be more open and transparant with it’s investors. Reading from the comments below and below earlier posts, it appears that you are constantly “hiding” behind the WeFunder Platform when questions get difficult. The key to succes in the hospitality industry is Guest Satisfaction and transparancy. Both seem to be missing at this point given the direction of communication and feeds that are closed for comments by investors. I encourgage you to be more open with us in order to support the platform and know what is happening with our investments. As most companies do, quarterly performance updates are given. Perhaps you could do the same? Thanks, Arjan
- Q: I feel compelled to share my frustration publicly. Six years ago, I invested $2,000 in this startup that presented itself with bold promises I endorsed, like promoting inclusivity, global community values, and progressive ideals. At the time, I believed in that vision. But the reality has been an overall silence. No meaningful and precise updates. No financial reports. No evidence of progress. Just vague messaging and what now seems like the instrumental use of “diversity” and “globalism” to attract funding — without any real delivery. I am seriously asking: Where did the money go? After all this time (6 years!!), I no longer believe in empty rhetoric. At this point, I want my investment back, without conflicting. If anyone else is in a similar situation, I encourage you to speak up. It’s time we hold startups accountable when they deal with investors' money and the trust they once asked for.
- Q: Hi. I was looking at my Convertible Promissory Note which matured on 5/19/2024 (36 months). How do I convert this to shares? Thank you Thai
- Q: I have written wefunder a few times with zero responses to my emails (from last year and prior), so I'm guessing I have to ask my question on this public wall, which is unfortunate. Is there an exit for the investors from the previous rounds? I invested in May of 2019 and I don't see any return on my investment-even after the 36 month (3 year) period. Thanks!
- Q: I want to call my investment. The late arrival of tax documents was inexcusable. How do we go about calling my portion of my investment?
- Q: Since April 14th I have been corresponding with misterb&b to get the correct tax documentation, a 1099-INT, for my investment. For whatever reason they tried to send me a tax document (1042-S) for a foreign investor, which I am not. I have been getting the run around and now misterb&b simply no longer responds. I have talked to the IRS on the phone and have been informed how to proceed, but need a mailing address for misterb&b. Anyone have that (short of mailing them at their service of process address)? Has anyone had similar problems? I just want to file an amended return. Incidentally, according to the IRS all 1099-INTs are to be made available or mailed on March 15th of the year, which misterb&b failed to do. I am sure I am not the only one put out by having to file an amended tax return because of the issuance of tax documentation four days before federal filing deadline. This is all really unprofessional.