Shelter Co., technically, is a company that rents tents. But over the past year, the California-based events company has pivoted from outfitting wedding venues, and is now creating outdoor offices for one of the biggest companies in the world.

Focused mostly on the West Coast, Shelter Co. has built its business around providing everything people would need to host a weekend wedding or family reunion outdoors. “The idea is, how do we enable people to throw a party for 200 people in the middle of nowhere, what does that look like, what do you need?” says Shelter Co. CEO and founder Kelsey Sheofsky. Over nine years, the company grew from a handful of tents to more than 500, and has used them to provide accommodations and settings for everything from destination weddings to corporate retreats.

And then the pandemic struck. “It canceled 100% of our business last year, which was startling, to say the least,” says Sheofsky. “But it kind of gave us some downtime to think about how we want to refocus things.”

At first, the company started working with restaurants and wineries hoping to stay open during the pandemic by adding more outdoor facilities. Then, Sheofsky says, a previous client reached out on behalf of its new company: Google. The tech giant had an RFP out for an outdoor office solution at its Mountain View campus, and after Sheofsky submitted a proposal, Shelter Co. was selected to provide it.

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