The encyclopedia · Strategy & Leadership · Strategic decision · 2022
The Wing raised $167M and a 35,000-person waitlist — every location closed
The women-only co-working club that raised $167 million on a mission and a 35,000-person waitlist closed every location in 2022
The Wing · 2022
What happened
The Wing opened in Manhattan's Flatiron district in October 2016 as a members-only club for women, with dues up to US$2,700 a year. By early 2020 it had 11 spaces in the US and UK, 500 employees, 12,000 members and a 35,000-person waitlist, and a peak valuation of US$365 million after raising more than US$117 million.
The mission was the pitch, and the pitch outran the place. A March 2020 New York Times exposé detailed mistreatment of staff and ignored complaints; in June 2020 co-founder and CEO Audrey Gelman resigned after employees staged a walkout. The pandemic then closed all 11 locations.
In February 2021 office-space giant IWG took a majority stake and six of the 11 spaces reopened. Membership never recovered — analysts say co-working needs 70–75% occupancy to be viable, and members had shifted to working near home.
On August 31, 2022 The Wing closed all remaining locations permanently, saying it could not recover 'the level of active membership and event activity necessary to run a financially sustainable operation'.
Why it happened
- The brand grew faster than the business: a $365M valuation and a 35,000-person waitlist were built on image, while member abuse and staff complaints went unanswered for years.
- The founder was the product: when the June 2020 exposé and the staff walkout ended Gelman's run, the club's story — and much of its appeal — left with her.
- The pandemic broke the model and IWG could not fix it: co-working needs 70–75% occupancy, and the reopened locations never came close as members chose to work near home.
- Money bought spaces, not systems: $167M funded expansion and aesthetics, while a 12,000-member club still ran on a culture that could not hold staff.
The lesson
A membership business sells the promise to renew — when the promise is the founder's image and operations are an afterthought, one exposé and one pandemic can end the club.
Sources
- CNN | The Wing, the once-buzzy women's coworking community, has closed its doors
- Fortune | The rise and fall of the Wing: How the popular co-working startup failed
spotted an error? The club wants to know.
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