A San Francisco startup has a new spin on the concept of home swapping.
Kindred has created a kind of club for home swappers. After paying an annual fee, members can book a stay in homes around the country. Because members only have to pay a cleaning fee and a daily service fee, their stays can be much cheaper than stay at a posh hotel or renting a home on Airbnb, according to the startup.
The only catch? Members have to make their own homes available for other members to stay in. Indeed, members earn credits to stay in others' homes by hosting people in their own places.
"Each member must host their own home in order to stay as a guest, increasing trust between members since everyone has skin in the game," the company says on frequently asked questions page on its website. "Because there is no financial exchange between the guest and the host, members are trusted peers looking to travel more frequently vs. professional hosts looking to rent their investment home."
Founded by Opendoor Technologies Inc. vets Tasneem Amina and Justine Palefsky, Kindred has some new cash to grow its service. It recently raised $7.75 million in seed funding in a deal led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Here's more on Kindred's new round and other seed funding news from this past week:
Jarvis ML Inc., Cupertino, $16 million: Dell Technologies Capital led the round for this developer of a service that helps companies customize their marketing and promotions to individual customers.
Delta One Labs Corp., San Francisco, $9.1 million: Alameda Research and Ship Capital led the round for this provider of cryptocurrency-based financial investment products. Solana Ventures, Electric Capital, AlleyCorp, Chris McCann and Alfred Chuang also invested.
Kindred Concepts Inc. (dba Kindred), San Francisco, $7.75 million: Andreessen Horowitz led the round for this provider of a home-swapping service. Bessemer Venture Partners and Caffeinated Capital also invested.
Compass Beauty Inc. (dba Revea), San Francisco, $6 million: Alpha Edison led the funding for this provider of skin care products. Ulta Beauty, WaldenCast Ventures, GISEV, Verlinvest and Kathaka also invested.
Dassana Inc., San Jose, $5 million: Dell Technologies Capital led the round for this provider of a storage service for software logs.
Glacier Technology Inc., San Francisco, $4.5 million: New Enterprise Associates led the round for this developer of a waste-sorting robot.
Perfect Venue P.B.C., San Francisco, $3.6 million: Defy Partners led the round for this provider of event management software for restaurants and other venues. Amity Ventures, Context Ventures, Shawn Tsao, Sam Ellis and Paul Madera also invested.
