TurnoverBnB Raises $4.5M in Series A Round: Exclusive
By Philip Russo August 16, 2021 10:22 am
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TurnoverBnB, a Hawaii-based proptech SaaS platform that helps vacation rental operators source and manage cleaners for their properties, has swept up a $4.5 million Series A raise led by RET Ventures, a proptech-focused VC firm. Accelerator Blue Startups, also based in Hawaii, participated too.
Founded in 2016, TurnoverBnB discovered that its centralized platform for sourcing and managing cleaning services for short-term rental properties increased in value due to greater cleanliness and health concerns due to COVID.
“Short-term rentals have really thrived in the COVID environment,” said Assaf Karmon, CEO and co-founder of TurnoverBnB. “They’re isolated by design, unlike hotels with common areas. We are kind of riding that short-term rental wave, but initially it was difficult with COVID, because no one was going anywhere.”
Eventually, people felt safer and wanted to travel, but along with owners, were still focused on rentals having serious cleaning procedures, said Karmon.
TurnoverBnB works with short-term rental hosts on Airbnb, Booking.com, TripAdvisor, VRBO and similar sites, “but we are platform agnostic,” said Karmon.
Karmon also said he believes that the success of short-term rentals, “which have much higher yields than long-term rentals,” have made investors more amenable to startups like his that service STRs. “We’re making it easier to operate short-term rentals.”
TurnoverBnB is operating throughout North America, but STR owners who source their own cleaning staff can use the platform’s other features anywhere in the world virtually, said Karmon. The TurnoverBnB platform enables operators to hire experienced cleaners in thousands of cities, providing features such as auto scheduling and auto payment to streamline the management of in-unit cleaning. In total, TurnoverBnB’s user base comprises more than 20,000 short-term rental hosts.
The company plans to use its latest raise to facilitate its geographic expansion, building out its professional team in the near term, including adding engineers, designers, customer service representatives, community managers, and marketing professionals.
TurnoverBnB is eyeing expansion into the single-family rental and multifamily sectors, Karmon said. RET Ventures is expected to provide access to its limited partners, who collectively own and operate more than 2 million rental units.
“The potential for a marketplace like the one curated by TurnoverBnB is significant, especially as the company scales to provide more offerings directed toward the residential space,” Aaron Ru, vice president at RET Ventures, said in a statement. “Over the course of the past year, the single-family rental market has experienced significant growth, and there is a tremendous opportunity for technologies that support SFR portfolio operations. TurnoverBnB is perfectly poised to enter this emerging sector, opening the platform up for use by mom-and-pop SFR owners as well as institutional players.”
Philip Russo can be reached at prusso@commercialobserver.com.
