Kindred is a home-swapping company that aims to make traveling more affordable. It was created in 2021, and it recently reached $7.75 million in funding. The company focuses on creating a unique home-swapping model that is more affordable than other accommodation options like hotels or Airbnbs.
One of the major impacts the pandemic had was not only in terms of remote work but also in terms of traveling. People realized that remote work not only meant working from home but anywhere. Consequently, there has been an increase in digital nomads who are on the lookout for affordable destinations. And now, traveling is even more accessible with alternatives such as Kindred, making accommodations more affordable.
Kindred: A Great Accommodation Alternative
Opeendoor alums Justine Palefsky and Tasneem Amina built Kindreed in 2021. Their main goal is to help make traveling more accessible by building a unique home-swapping model.
As they told Techcrunch recently:
“We started Kindred after we struggled with the problem ourselves. We were both working remotely and we wanted to take advantage of that flexibility to travel more and work from elsewhere. But none of the existing solutions or ways to do that really made sense for us and for our lives. “We felt like we had three options. One, we could get an Airbnb somewhere, which became too expensive for trips longer than just a few nights. Or you could give up your home and become a nomad. Or you could run your home like a hotel and put it on Airbnb to finance your travel. None of those options felt right for us because they are inconvenient, and a little scary.”
Kindred has a members-only model that works by creating a network to exchange homes. The network is trusted so members can feel comfortable swapping homes. No money is exchanged between members. But they have to pay a $300 annual fee to stay on the network. If a member lets someone stay at their home for a certain number of nights, they can then bank those nights to stay at someone else’s place.
The startup raised $7.75M in funding with the help of investors that included the participation of Bessemer Venture Partners, Caffeinated Capital, and Angel investors.
