Söderlund International, the company behind the Finland’s HUONE Hotel, officially launched its Invesdor campaign earlier this week to raise €500,000 for its new hotel in Singapore. Within a matter of two days, the initiative successfully secured half of its funding goal.
HUONE, which is located in Helsinki, is dubbed as a meeting and events hotel, which means NO actual bedrooms. Since its launch in 2012, HUONE has won a total of six awards, including Best Event Venue in Finland and PwC’s Most Valuable Entrepreneur of the year. Söderlund International is seeking to place a HUONE Hotel in 10 cities throughout the world, starting with Singapore.
Söderlund International stated:
“HUONE Events Hotel is an exceptional place for B2B meetings [and] events, a hotel without bedrooms. The Google-office style creative thematic meeting rooms added with on-site event consultants offer a variety of programs, activities, wine&dine with full service. Every meeting is looked at individually where mini frameworks and tools can be introduced to facilitate the meetings towards different goals.”
The company also noted:
“[Founders] Evon and Jussi [Söderlund] share a love for events and new experiences, they saw how difficult it was to organize events and to bring people together. They saw how the biggest player in the industry (i.e. hotels) offered a poor solution for customers. Little has been done to develop these boring meeting and event facilities. After 5 years of careful planning, they sought funding to build an Events Hotel, a concept they had developed. In 2012 without having luck raising equity for this new idea, they decided to sell their own apartment and take on loans to fund the venture. Their startup journey has been tough but it has been full of invaluable teachings to shape both the business and the entrepreneurs and reveal diamonds in the rough.”
During a recent interview with the funding platform, Evon revealed why she and her team decided to go with the crowdfunding method:
“Why not? We will get hundreds of new investors, Huone members. There are so many people who would love to help and share our spirit. Now we have the chance to offer everyone this possibility to invest, both wisdom and equity, in Huone. We cannot do this alone. Invesdor is a frontrunner in the crowdfunding scene and they share similar values with us, e.g. the fun business factor – dancing with finance. We take our business very seriously, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously.”
In regards to HUONE’s future, Evon added:
“My ultimate dream is to see Huone as a global business. We want to be in the forefront of creating memorable meeting events and continue to uphold our position as trendsetter of the meeting industry globally.”
The funds from the Invesdor campaign will go towards finalizing the operations (Franchising) manuals, online platform, as well as the establishment of the first unit abroad in Singapore.
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