Sonder collapses, evicts customers
Sonder, the hotel company that was founded in Montreal in 2012 but spread to the U.S., has abruptly declared bankruptcy and evicted its customers.
CBC says the company got millions from Investissement Québec in 2020.
DeWolf 12:18 on 2025-11-12 Permalink
I’m really surprised it took local media so long to report on this given that Sonder has its second headquarters here, plus seven hotels. This has been all over US media for a few days now.
Nicholas 12:21 on 2025-11-12 Permalink
CTV says they got a loan, but what they actually got was an agreement for a loan and facility, subject to certain conditions. They never fulfilled all those conditions, so never got any money, and terminated the agreement in 2024, as per SEC filings (search for Quebec). So the only taxpayer dollars that went into this was the staff time and expenses to set this deal up.
GC 12:23 on 2025-11-12 Permalink
I wasn’t really aware of their existence before they interviewed me for a possible job around 2022. Maybe I dodged a bullet there.
All the same, I can’t imagine being in a situation where I’m travelling and get evicted from my temporary accommodations.
jeather 13:33 on 2025-11-12 Permalink
I’ve seen a lot of reports of people who are not only locked out, but their belongings are locked in.
GC 14:23 on 2025-11-12 Permalink
I hadn’t even thought of that :(. I could definitely see it, though, if you didn’t happen to be “home” at the time they locked everything out.
Ian 19:37 on 2025-11-12 Permalink
I remember when the dot com collpase happened some people I knew in Toronto got locked in thes tairwells when their offices suddenly closed down without warning. Note that this was before cellphones, too. I had applied at that office a year before and was turned down, I was sore about it at the time but in retrospect I dodged a bullet.