Alex Chatzieleftheriou based Blueground in 2013 after being pissed off with the dearth of short-term furnished flats in Europe. He had been touring as a marketing consultant for McKinsey, dwelling nearly completely in lodge rooms for months.
“One time the company had to pay up to €15,000 for a hotel room in Amsterdam. And there wasn’t enough space nor a kitchen to cook,” he mentioned. “I tried renting apartments for a month or more. But it was difficult, and landlords weren’t open to buying furniture. So I had created a business that would solve my problem.”
Some years later, on the peak of the pandemic, enterprise was booming for his startup’s class – short-term, furnished house rental firms – as folks roamed the world whereas working from house.
Now that many employers have known as employees again to workplaces, the demand for short-term housing has cratered.
A few of his rivals didn’t survive. Zeus Living and WanderJaunt shut their doorways and returned the keys. Some grew to become acquisition alternatives for Blueground. In 2022, the corporate gained a powerful foothold in Latin America by buying Tabas, an operator of over 9,0000 furnished flats in Brazil. Inside months, Blueground snagged Travelers Haven, a 15-year-old enterprise that gives on-demand housing to employees in practically 20,000 cities all through the US. In 2023 it picked up Nestpick, a market for furnished house operators, like Kasa and Placemakr, giving prospects entry to an additional 18,000 apartments.
Blueground now operates a worldwide community of move-in prepared properties for stays of a month or extra, and has raised $45 million in Sequence D funding from new investor Susquehanna Non-public Fairness Investments together with different backers, together with WestCap, Chatzieleftheriou advised TechCrunch. The New York-based firm mentioned it additionally secured a debt facility from Barclays with participation from Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Financial institution and HSBC, which changed and upsized the $40 million of debt Blueground obtained from Silicon Valley Financial institution in 2021.
Blueground leases flats in standard neighborhoods after which equips and furnishes them for renters. The corporate presently manages 15,000 flats in 32 markets in 17 nations. Along with taking out its personal leases, Blueground has just lately launched a franchise that companions with native operators in Japan and Thailand and lists items of third-party operators on its platform.
The corporate didn’t reveal its new valuation, however Chatzieleftheriou mentioned that the corporate’s worth has elevated since its earlier spherical. That valuation was reportedly $750 million after elevating a $140 million Sequence C in September 2021.
It’s no secret that the fundraising setting has been extraordinarily difficult for late-stage firms, particularly these within the proptech sector, which has been battered by rising rates of interest.
Chatzieleftheriou advised TechCrunch that his firm’s quick development and near-profitability helped persuade traders to fork over the most recent funding.
Gross sales jumped by 70% to $560 million in 2023 over 2022’s $300 million in gross income, Chatzieleftheriou mentioned. Internet gross sales margin—that’s after it pays landlords for leases—is roughly 35%, he added and he expects Blueground to have optimistic money circulation in 2024.
Whereas additional acquisitions appear possible, given Chatzieleftheriou’s prediction of trade consolidation, the quick focus is integrating these current purchases. The brand new funding will go in direction of market growth, know-how investments, and presumably the last word monetary purpose: an IPO.
