A $50M Funding Boost to Deliver on Our Promise to “Show up and Start Living”

The feeling of home bundles many of our essential needs as humans together: warmth, rest and security, for starters. It was something I craved in a previous career that had me relocating through 12 different cities and practically living out of hotel rooms for 5 years. That feeling of home was the starting point for my co-founders and me when we created Blueground six years ago.

As a real estate tech company, we’ve set out with the vision to make people feel at home wherever they choose to live. How? Through thoughtfully-furnished and centrally-located apartments in the world’s business hubs. Today Blueground has apartments everywhere from Los Angeles to Dubai. But in this day and age, the product is only half of the offering. A seamless booking process and dedicated customer service allow Blueground’s guests to reserve and scroll through their apartment before arriving in-person and our mobile app enables cleaning and maintenance at the click of a button.

We’ve completely reimagined the renting experience for the contemporary urbanite. As we continue to put an emphasis on a tech-enhanced guest experience and excellent customer service, Blueground is ambitiously aiming for a growth objective of 50,000 apartments in 50 cities.

Since our founding in 2013, Blueground has raised $78 million in funding from our partners. This Fall, we were injected with $50 million from our Series B funding round where we brought on venture capital firms Westcap and Prime Ventures. They are now among our growing team of backers, joining serial entrepreneur Kevin Ryan, VentureFriends, Endeavor Catalyst and Jabbar Internet Group.

This round of funding will allow us to dream even bigger and grow our incredible team in order to support the living experiences of thousands of our guests worldwide. This boost enables us to propel ourselves into new markets in the coming months all while bringing the brightest minds onto our Engineering team to further develop our proprietary technology. But we can’t stop just at the product or experience itself, there is always a human element to everything we do. Our mission is to create a tech-powered living experience that guests love, homed in an organization where great people are proud to work.

For our business guests, the proposition of a more roomy and value-adding accommodation over a hotel keeps them renewing. For the minimalist on the move, relocating to a beautifully furnished home has never been lighter on the luggage. For those new to a city who need the time to feel out their dream area, we offer the flexibility to our guests to move between apartments and neighborhoods.

From the business travelers to the professional athletes that call a Blueground apartment their home, our proposition is spelled out simply in our tagline: “Show up. Start living.”

We’re significantly shortening the hours spent on apartment hunting down to just a few minutes. That also means no more assembling furniture, waiting around for the telecom technician to install WiFi during your first week of work, or only subsisting off delivery pizza until your stove arrives. Your start to a new job, another year of studies or whatever has motivated your move deserves your undivided attention, and we hope that our tech-powered turnkey solution allows you the time to focus on what matters most.

Closing out this latest round of funding also comes at the same time as Blueground marks tripled annual revenue YoY for the past three years and more than 1 million nights spent by our guests. Blueground now counts more than 2,800 furnished apartments across our portfolio in 6 U.S. cities, Istanbul, Athens and Dubai. Our turnkey apartments are the ideal option for individuals and business guests moving or relocating for a month, a year or even longer. And we’re growing quickly. London, Paris and Seattle are underway and we’re excited to have new homes there in the coming months.

How do we get the job done? To date, Blueground has leased numerous apartments, more than 2 million square feet of property. On the side of landlords and property owners, a multiyear rental contract with Blueground guarantees our owners a steady cash flow and value-added solutions that maximize a property’s annual yield.

Our Design team then works their magic to outfit the properties with premium furnishings, high-speed WiFi, luxury linens, and high-end gadgets. Our Bespoke Collection is a smaller selection of apartments that we use for prototyping and customizing the home to the city and building’s character. The idea here is that we can play around with trend-based furnishings, new materials, and unique layouts — and get buy in from our guests — before scaling it up across our cities.

Our team of photographers captures our homes from the right angles to give you the complete picture of what living in a Blueground home is like. They pass these details onto our Marketing team who ensure you come by the apartments on your house hunt. Our Sales team is there to listen to our vetted renters and match them to their ideal home for stays of 30 days or longer.

Our teams in Engineering, Product and Data diligently work behind the scenes to be sure that everything goes off without a hitch. From the live availability and pricing you see online, to scheduling a weekly cleaning appointment through the app, they work hard to ensure the Blueground experience is highly efficient and aesthetically pleasing.

Our guests truly do fall in love with our homes. The average length of stay is five months, though many opt to renew for longer (while our longest guest has been with us for five years!)

Once the online reservation is made, guests have access to ongoing support from our Client Experience team and receive information through the Blueground app, where they can arrange housekeeping, and request maintenance service. Guests can even modify their stay by moving to another apartment in a new neighborhood.

For the discerning expat, minimalist, or renter who needs month-by-month housing — Blueground fills a much-needed gap for smartly-decorated homes. Gone are the days of multiple open houses, trips across town to buy furniture and homewares and time wasted setting up utilities. Behind your next relocation is a team of 400 of us to make it all the simpler. All that’s left for guests is to “Show up and start living.”

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