Stay One Degree – a private accommodation cum social networking site – has raised US1.5 million in seed funding, tripling their initial target.
Launched in December last year and co-founded by Thomas Bennett and Jorge Munoz, Stay One Degree aims to rebuild the experience of people lending out their homes to friends and acquaintances while on holiday.
Based in Hong Kong and the UK, Stay One Degree has amassed a property inventory and membership base in over 50 countries, in its first six months of operation.
Its seed funding comes from multiple blue chip investors who have made personal investments in the business. One example is Emma Sherrard Matthew, the executive chairman of Quintessentially APAC – a luxury concierge company.
“With members having access to preferential ‘friendly’ rates and local insider knowledge from their network connections, Stay One Degree addresses all the requirements of the modern luxury traveller,” said Sherrard Matthew.
Other investors include the former chairman of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, Ronald Arculli, the Chairman and Non-Executive Director of Just Eat plc, Andrew Griffith, as well as Alex Ham and Ross Mitchinson, Co-CEOs of Numis Securities Limited.
“We believe that Stay One Degree with its passionate management team is ideally positioned to capture the huge growth in the luxury home rental market and evolution of the sharing economy,” said Arculli.
Stay One Degree has not yet announced how it intends to use the funding to develop the business. Munoz simply highlighted how the funding would help the startup “respond to the incredibly positive reaction…. and accelerate the growth of our network.”
