Skift Take
The Lyric short-term rental brand is resurfacing as the capital environment sobers up, and the industry learns to be patient about scale and growth.
There are stories of “software eating the world” and leaving a dust trail of fallen companies behind. This is not that story.
This is about a tech company and property manager that failed, and a leader who learned a hard lesson about skills and market demands.
Florida-based Black Swan, a real estate investment firm, has acquired former short-term rental operator Lyric, which specialized in multifamily buildings until its demise during the pandemic. The acquisition has bought Black Swan Lyric’s domestic and international trademark rights, operational and performance data, and the lyric.com domain.
Andrew Kitchell and Joe Fraiman founded Lyric in 2014 to demonstrate a use case for revenue management software company Wheelhouse, which they also co-founded. In 2019, Airbnb led a $160 million funding round in Lyric, which wound down operations during the pandemic when such companies as Lyric, Domio and Stay Alfred with master leases for multifamily buildings burnt too much cash and couldn't scale operations. Sonder, which had raised $839 million before it went public, was one of the few of this ilk that survived.
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