While the idea of swapping one's home for a free vacation stay is not new, the San Francisco startup Kindred is trying to create a more curated experience around the concept.
The company just raised $15 million from a round led by New Enterprise Associates with participation from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Caffeinated Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners and Outset Capital.
Kindred was founded by alums of proptechs Opendoor and Homeward Justine Palefsky, CEO, and Tasneem Amina.
Palefsky says the company will use the funding to expand offerings to Europe and improve services to its existing locations in San Francisco, Miami, New York, Mexico City and Los Angeles.
Kindred works through a membership model, where users with homes in select cities that meet certain standards can go through an application process to begin swapping homes. The company sends a photographer to each home to get professional photos and ensure the homes meet the criteria of safe location, clean and "thoughtfully furnished."
Users can either make an agreement with another member to swap homes on the same night or lend their home to another member and bank the days to use at another time. Swapping homes for the most part is free, except for a cleaning fee and a service fee collected by Kindred. The company partners with third party cleaning services and ensures that homes are cleaned before the members return from their swap.
Users can also pay for a $600 per year premium membership that waves all service and cleaning fees.
Currently, Kindred has 2,000 members in its private beta with 20,000 applications.
Palefsky says the target demographic for the service at the moment is working professionals with remote jobs that can work from anywhere for weeks at a time.
"A very frequent kindred trip is what we would call the formerly weekend trip that in a prior world would have been Friday to Sunday," she said. "But now you can work remotely in a comfortable place, Monday through Friday of that week, and not have to pay $800 a night to do so."
The average night stay on the platform is five and a half nights.
Kindred will have competition from more established players in the home swapping space like Home Exchange, which was founded in 1992, to a host of other smaller startups offering similar services.
Palefsky says Kindred differentiates itself from other services through more premium offerings like sending welcome kits to each member that include guest towels and lock boxes, while providing 24/7 concierge service during the stay.
