Zumper, a property rental marketplace, has riased $30 million in Series D extension. Zumper reports, that in total it has raised $178 million. The funding was led by Kleiner Perkins.
Zumper said it would soon relaunch with a short-term rental extension added to their core Long Term rental business. Zumper’s short-term listings are powered with partnerships from VRBO, Booking.com, and proprietary listings direct from landlords/multifamily.
Zumper noted that it is benefitting from the Work from Home (WFH) or work anywhere which has prompted a cultural shift in daily existence. Zumper said that it found that ⅓ of users were interested in flexible rentals, and data from Zumper’s 2021 survey of short-term rental users showed that short-term rentals are a means for a variety of situational stays.
The survey also revealed that 74 percent of users are booking 1-2 monthly rentals annually, and 49 percent remain in one unit between two and six months. Short-term rentals are not just about vacations, but how people live today.
Shalin Amin, Chief Experience Officer of Zumper, said they are not just for digital nomads and trendsetters but others as well:
“We’re a solution for many people looking for temporary housing in a growing workforce of migratory workers, like traveling nurses, construction crews, and disaster response teams. Our users play a critical role in making the communities and cities they relocate to thrive.”
In Zumper’s 2022 survey of monthly renters, 12.3 percent of respondents said they use short-term rentals for nomad life, while 35.2 percent said they use them to accommodate a temporary gap in housing, the most common use.
Monthly renters also use them for work travel, as 21.3 percent said that was why they used short-term rentals.
Zumper’s short-term listings may be booked at no additional fee to the guest, which the company states is traditionally 15% or more on other short-term rental sites such as Airbnb.
Landlords may now opt to list their properties short-term to meet demand with the ability to advertise their short-term and monthly rentals in front of Zumper’s users.
Zumper co-founder and CEO Anthemos Georgiades believes the traditional short-term rental industry incorporates fees that are simply too high:
“We want to build the most comprehensive rental platform that enables our renters to easily find the best short-term, monthly or long-term rentals with a product designed for today’s far more flexible world.”