Welcome to the tenth episode in the Elevator Pitch series 3.
Every week we publish a 30 second pitch from 12 leading startups from across London. In this series we took the founders to the top of 40 Bank Street in the heart of Canary Wharf for the most exciting pitch of their lives.
FlatClub is a short term rental marketplace that focuses on building trust between guests and hosts. Where competitors display listings to everyone on their website, FlatClub give hosts the power to the host to select who may view and book their flat.
Guests and hosts verify membership in their university and corporate networks – called “clubs” on the site – and choose who to rent with. By finding someone with whom you have a connection, you can trust who you are renting from or renting to.
The beginning
FlatClub originated from the need of one of its founders. When Nitzan Yudan wanted to rent out his flat for a few weeks, he didn’t want to list it to a stranger.
I wanted to rent it to someone I trust. As all the other platforms just advertise listings to everyone, I realized there is value by allowing hosts to select their audience and offer their place only to someone they trust.
So I went to speak with 300 people, found that I’m not the only one, and built FlatClub.
LiveDemand
The company have today announced an new initiative to the service, was launched by Mayor of London Boris Johnson.
LiveDemand allows guests to post what they are looking for and hosts to make offers to specific guests – effectively proactively filling their calendar with bookings.
It flips the peer-to-peer marketplace on its head and Nitzan says it received remarkable feedback during its trial.
Hosts who use LiveDemand receive 30% more bookings. First-time hosts are twice as active in making offers rather than having to wait for guests to come to them.
Going forward
What has been the most exciting development so far?
For me, the biggest excitement is to start every morning by looking on the feedback we had from customers over the night and the previous day.
That feedback has led to an exciting 12 months for FlatClub. In November, they raised $1.5m and now have 75,000 members, 50 university partnerships, and 15,000 listings.
For them, it’s now all about more listing, more networks and more locations.