Former colleagues Jennifer Rubio and Stephanie Korey, who had worked on the executive team at Warby Parker, founded Away in 2015. The pair wanted to create luggage that was easier, especially for women, that had everything frequent travelers would appreciate, such as USB ports.
The company grew quickly, selling more than $12 million in luggage in 2016, its first full fiscal year. The following year, with more than $50 million in sales, the company had to hire an additional 60 persons to handle the load.
To date, the company has sold more than 300,000 suitcases and is the highest funded, all-female start-up projects. The majority of sales occur online, but the company does have 4 brick and mortar locations in the US, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Austin. The company recently opened a store in London as the company’s flagship store in the UK.
The carry on bag is the company’s most sought after piece, with celebrities posting photos of their bags on Instagram and the popular app SnapChat.
Online site The Verge posted an interview in December 2019 with Stephanie Korey, where she described her own workplace as being “toxic” and where employees were publically ridiculed on Stack. Korey apologized several times calling her words “simply wrong”, but the outcry was so strong, Korey resigned as CEO in late December 2019.
The corporate office for Away is located in New York, New York.
