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The Venture Codex

Starwood Capital Group

591 West Putnam Avenue, Greenwich, CT, 06830, United States

Overview

Starwood Capital has invested $11.8 billion of equity since 1991 in all asset classes and levels of the capital structure. As of June 30, 2013, this has included approximately: - Office: 41.7 million square feet - Retail: 27.5 million square feet - Industrial: 12 million square feet - Multifamily & Condominiums: 69,000 units - Hotels: 2,180 hotels - Land: 40,000 acres, 45,000 lots - Debt: 670 discrete investments - Operating companies: 23

Total investments
22
Lead investments
5
Investments · 12mo
3
Active investors
8

Sector focus

  • Finance
  • Financial Services
  • Venture Capital
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Investment portfolio

  • Legora

    Participated · Series D · Mar 2026

    Legora offers an AI-driven legal platform that leverages large language models to assist law firms and in-house legal teams with tasks across legal workflows. The company launched its platform roughly 18 months ago and now reports usage by more than 1,000 law firms and in-house teams across 50 markets. Legora recently crossed $100 million in annual recurring revenue, a milestone that contributed to a $5.6 billion post-money valuation. It has been investing in global expansion—opening multiple offices with a clear focus on the U.S.—and in high-profile marketing campaigns such as advertising featuring actor Jude Law. Legora positions itself in direct competition with U.S. rival Harvey and emphasizes client wins with firms like Bird & Bird, Cleary Gottlieb, and Linklaters. Its growth and recent financings suggest a push to scale sales and market presence internationally.

  • Decagon

    Participated · Series D · Jan 2026

    Decagon, headquartered in San Francisco and led by CEO Brian Choi, builds a conversational AI platform that lets brands deploy fully-featured AI concierge agents over voice, chat, email, SMS, and other channels. Its technology is already used by household names in travel and hospitality (Avis, Hertz, Duolingo), financial services (Block, Affirm, Chime), health and wellness (Oura Health, Noom, Eight Sleep), retail (Mercado Libre, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM), and on-demand commerce (Grubhub, GoPuff). The platform focuses on delivering highly personalized, always-available customer support and engagement, positioning itself as a core infrastructure layer for customer experience. With its new capital, Decagon plans to expand operations and accelerate product development to serve a broader range of global enterprises. The January 2026 Series D round values the company at $4.5 billion, underscoring strong investor confidence. While detailed revenue or user metrics were not disclosed, the sizeable valuation and blue-chip customer roster indicate meaningful market traction.

  • Baselane

    Participated · Series B · Oct 2025

    Baselane offers a comprehensive financial platform purpose-built for rental property owners, combining banking, automated bookkeeping, tax reporting, and rent collection in one solution. More than 50,000 independent real-estate investors use the service, processing over $2 billion annually through the platform. By automating core financial tasks, Baselane enables landlords to save time, operate more efficiently, and expand their rental portfolios. Led by CEO Mathias Korder, the company plans to channel new capital into scaling its go-to-market efforts and accelerating product innovation. Investor enthusiasm has helped the firm raise $44.3 million in total, highlighting confidence in its growth potential. Baselane aims to further transform how individual real-estate investors manage and grow their businesses through continued product enhancements and market expansion.

  • Wander

    Participated · Series B · May 2025

    Wander combines the dependability of a luxury hotel with the warmth and character of thoughtfully designed homes, focusing on the top 5% of short-term rental properties. Its core product is WanderOS, a proprietary AI operating system that automates listing creation, maintenance coordination, and guest logistics to deliver consistent, hotel-grade service. As of April 2025 the company has more than 1,000 homes live, 35,000+ total nights booked, a Q1 2025 NPS of 85, a 92.1% customer satisfaction rate, a 9.3/10 average trip rating, and a 27% repeat booking rate. Wander says WanderOS will enable it to automate 95% of operational tasks within the next 18 months. Every stay includes premium beds, fast Wi‑Fi, seamless check-in, and always-available concierge support powered by humans and AI. The company plans to expand into new markets, invest further in AI-powered operations, and continue building a global brand grounded in quality, trust, and technology. Wander.com is an Austin, TX–based network of smart vacation homes founded in May 2021. Through its app, consumers can book smart homes in locations including Vail, Tahoe, Joshua Tree, Asheville, Hudson Valley and coastal properties in California, Florida, Oregon and South Carolina. Homes feature inspiring views, modern workstations, restful beds, hotel-grade cleaning and 24/7 concierge services with full home control. Wander received a $100M credit facility from Credit Suisse. The company will use the capital to expand its coast-to-coast network and more than double the size of its portfolio in the first half of 2023. Wander also launched Wander Atlas, a vacation-rental REIT that enables customers to become partial property owners and potentially earn yield as passive income. Wander operates a portfolio of smart, owned short-term luxury homes aimed at digital nomads who need reliable connectivity and high-end work setups. The company purchases properties, outfits them with 1GB Wi‑Fi, workstations, webcams, ergonomic furniture and app-controlled amenities, and currently has five homes in its portfolio. It has amassed a waitlist of over 30,000 users and more than 2,000 founding members who each pre-paid a $100 credit during beta. Prices start at $350 per night and offerings include free use of a Tesla and plans for a forthcoming crypto payment option. Wander plans to expand from five properties to dozens more and is exploring multiple revenue streams enabled by owning inventory, including longer-term rentals or eventual home sales. The team positions the product as a digitally managed platform built on real human concierge services and local service partnerships.

  • Exowatt

    Participated · Series A · Apr 2025

    Exowatt’s core product is the P3 unit, a shipping-container-sized metal box topped with lenses that concentrate sunlight onto heat-retaining bricks. A fan carries the heat to a Stirling engine and generator, enabling each thermal battery to store energy for up to five days and deliver round-the-clock electricity. The system’s efficiency rivals photovoltaic solar plus lithium-ion storage, while its compact, modular design is intended to unlock mass manufacturing learning curves. Exowatt is targeting production of one million units per year, a scale that management says will let it hit its one-cent-per-kilowatt-hour cost goal. Demand appears strong: the company reports a backlog of roughly 10 million P3 units, equivalent to 90 GWh of capacity. Longer term, Exowatt intends to deploy millions—and eventually billions—of units to power the rapidly expanding fleet of AI data centers in sun-rich regions. The approach repurposes decades-old concentrated solar technology but packages it for low-cost, large-scale manufacturing.

Team

  • Barry Sternlicht

    Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

  • Bob Faith

    Co-Founder

    LinkedIn
  • Cody Bradshaw

    Managing Director, Global Head of Hotel Asset Management

    LinkedIn
  • John McCarthy

    Managing Director, Global Capital Raising