The concept of taking existing property and reusing it is not new. After all, Airbnb is a high-profile example of people turning vacation homes, say, into income generators when they’re not using them. The end result is that travelers today have far more options than ever before when it comes to choosing where to stay.
A San Francisco-based startup has sprung up that wants to not only give travelers more choice, but also make travel more affordable, and it just raised $15 million toward that goal. Opendoor alumni Justine Palefsky and Tasneem Amina teamed up in 2021 to start a company, Relativeswith the aim of giving people the option to book accommodation through a unique model of housing exchange.
Kindred is building a members-only network to allow people to essentially swap houses. The idea is to make the network “trustworthy” so that members feel comfortable exchanging houses. Interestingly, no money is exchanged between members, who pay Kindred a fee to allow someone to stay in their house and vice versa.
If a member allows someone to stay at their home for a certain number of nights, they can deposit those nights to stay at someone else’s home while they are gone. It is a policy of give and take. For each stay, a guest pays Kindred a service fee (which is variable per trip but with a maximum of $30 per night) to coordinate the stay and for the protection of the home. That service fee covers the company’s costs and provides its margin, its founders say. Guests also pay the cost of cleaning the house they are staying in, but the company says it doesn’t profit from that.
Members can use Kindred to set up direct 1-for-1 exchanges, or host other members to earn nights and use those nights to stay at another member’s home. The company recently introduced a pay-as-you-go model with no annual commitment required. Once accepted, those members only cover the cost of cleaning and the service fee per trip. Those who use Kindred frequently have the option to purchase a Kindred Passport for $600, allowing them to book unlimited rides with $0 service fees for a period of one year.
“We designed Kindred for real people who share their real homes with each other, not property managers or vacation rentals. There are already plenty of ‘pay to get’ options for travel,” he said. Palefsky, who works as CEO of the company. “Every guest is also a host, so everyone has a role in the game. This creates an environment of mutual trust and responsibility.”
Since launching its private beta last spring, Kindred says it has seen a tenfold increase in monthly travel bookings and received 20,000 membership applications, mostly from primary residences rather than investment houses. So far, Kindred members have spent over 5,000 nights at each other’s homes.
Kindred co-founders Justine Palefsky and Tas Amina/Image Credit: Kindred
An example of a use case involves a member who is a female founder in her early 30s who lives in Mexico City with her dog. She needed to travel to San Francisco frequently for work, but it was expensive and difficult to find places where she could take her dog. She booked more than 80 nights in her first 8 months at Kindred staying in San Francisco, New York and a few other destinations, according to Palefsky. In return, she hosted more than 80 nights at her Mexico City home while she was away.
“Stories like this really showed us that Kindred’s potential is actually much greater than we initially realized,” Palefsky told TechCrunch. “We have an opportunity to not only capture a piece of the existing travel market, but we can grow the travel market as a whole.”
New Enterprise Associates (NEA) led Series A, which included participation from existing backers Andreessen Horowitz, Caffeinated Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners and Outset Capital. New individual investors also put money into the round, including former Khosla investor Evan Moore and Figma CEO Dylan Field. To date, the startup has raised a total of $26.75 million. It has 20 employees, compared to 10 a year ago.
Kindred plans to use the new capital in part to expand geographically, in North America and several European cities this year, including London, Berlin and Amsterdam. Today, it is active in more than 20 markets in North America, including New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, Seattle, Denver, Austin, Vancouver, and Mexico City. The company also plans to invest in its product and technology, including Matchmaker, an algorithm it developed that will make AI-powered recommendations to members.
“Our goal is to eventually be everywhere, but initially we are targeting major cities where there is a large overlap in supply and demand, and where we can benefit from density with our local photography and cleaning operations,” Palefsky said.
NEA partner Vanessa Larco, who has joined Kindred’s board, believes that as short-term rental platforms have become “increasingly professionalized, they have left open a huge untapped opportunity for a true sharing economy.” that uniquely allows peer-to-peer exchange of primary residences, rather than renting out investment properties.”
He added: “The market size for primary residences is huge compared to investment homes and Kindred has shown that by providing the confidence and convenience to unlock more primary residences, they can bring net new home inventory to the vacation rental market.” “.