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Selina Hospitality

Hospitality / hostelsUK
New to Unitard
💀 Dead / Bankrupt
Peak $1.2 BillionToday
~-99%
from peak
  1. 🦄
    Became a unicorn
    2021
  2. 📈
    Peak valuation
    $1.2 Billion ’22
  3. 💔
    Became a Unitard
    2023
  4. 💸
    Last valuation
    Wiped out
🔥 Raised & burned
$340M
Total raised
$103K/day
Burned · 9.0y alive
Funding: press (Globes / HOTELS / SEC)
Current status
Fell into administration (July 2024) after a liquidity crisis; operations sold to Collective Hospitality; value down >99%.

The rise & fall

8 moments · 2014–2024

The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.

2014
Founded
Design-forward hostels and co-working spaces for digital nomads; the first Selina opens in Panama.
Wikipedia
2021
Joins the unicorn club
A planned SPAC merger with BOA Acquisition Corp values the digital-nomad hostel chain at $1.2B.
Skift
Oct 2022
The peak: a $1.2B Nasdaq debut$1.2B
The SPAC merger completes and shares briefly spike to $40.90 — before gravity wins.
Skift
2023
Slips out of the club
Debt-fueled expansion meets a cash crunch; the stock sinks toward penny territory and the $1.2B tag is gone.
Skift
From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2022–24
Long before the filing, Glassdoor reviews described suppliers and musicians going unpaid for months, staff buying their own laptops, and properties leaning on unpaid interns compensated in room credits — some employees predicted bankruptcy two years before it came. By the penny-stock days, reviewers said even paychecks were arriving late.
2024
A $50M loan it can't repay
The IDB Invest debt comes due unpaid; the liquidity crisis turns terminal.
Calcalist
Jul 2024
Administration — joins the Unitard Club 💔
UK administrators take over the hostel empire two years after the Nasdaq bell.
Skift
2024
Operations sold to Collective Hospitality$12M
The network changes hands at roughly $12M — about 1% of the SPAC-era valuation.
Hospitality Net
$1.19Bof peak value erased · 9 years

💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.

How it happened

Selina built a global chain of design-forward hostels and co-working spaces for digital nomads, and went public on Nasdaq in October 2022 via a $1.2B SPAC merger with BOA Acquisition Corp.

After failing to repay a $50M IDB Invest loan, Selina fell into administration in July 2024, its operations sold to Collective Hospitality — a 99%+ wipeout.

Source: Skift / Calcalist / Hospitality Net ($1.2B SPAC merger with BOA Acquisition Corp Oct 2022, shares spiked to $40.90; failed $50M IDB Invest loan repayment; administration July 2024; operations sold to Collective Hospitality, value down >99% to ~$12M)

Founders

🦄