Vacation rental cleaning service app TurnoverBnB will attempt to further expand its international reach with $4.5 million in new funding, the Honolulu-based company recently announced.
The Series A money, from real estate tech investment firm RET Ventures and Hawaii-based accelerator Blue Startups, will go toward building out TurnoverBnB's engineering, marketing and sales teams spanning its Honolulu, Miami and South American offices, CEO and co-founder Assaf Karmon told Pacific Business News.
Revenues have tripled since the start of the year, Karmon said, though not necessarily in Hawaii, which he described as a small percentage of TurnoverBnB's business. The platform is used by upward of 20,000 rental hosts and "tens of thousands" of cleaning crews in North America and abroad, per the company.
"Covid initially was difficult, but then short-term rentals as a whole kind of picked up again," Karmon said. "Then business actually was better than before. Vacation rentals are seen as safer than hotels. As travel resumed, people have started going away, working remotely from other places. Vacation rentals really picked up and we’ve been seeing a tremendous boost."
TurnoverBnB acts as a digital broker between short-term vacation rental owners and cleaning crews, taking what Karmon describes as a "nominal" commission on each side for pairing them up on the marketplace.
The software-as-a-service company, founded in 2016 from an idea by Karmon and Tim Roy at the University of Hawaii's Shidler College of Business, now employs 55. Six are in its Bishop Square office and that's expected to be 10 there by the end of the year.
Karmon called the procurement of funding from RET Ventures the result of a "mutual connection" of interests that resulted in a strategic partnership.
"We saw the value they bring and they saw our numbers and what our users are saying about us," he said. "We really make a huge difference in the lives of our customers. Sometimes apps are nice to have, sometimes you barely even know you have the app on your phone. But for the people who operate short-term rentals, it’s a huge mental toll, to always stay on top of your cleaning situation and cleaning schedule. And we just eliminate that, which kind of allows them to focus on growing their business, or do other things. It’s a huge time-saver and makes a big, big impact on their lives."
Activity on Oahu on the TurnoverBnB has dropped off, he said, because of local vacation rental regulations.
