Over the past six months alone, Swimply has seen 3x growth. In May, co-founder Bunim Laskin told TechCrunch that Swimply was seeing “seven digits a month in revenue” and 15,000 to 20,000 reservations a month. People or families can rent pools by the hour at an average price of $45 to $65 per hour, depending on the amenities. Swimply connects homeowners that have underutilized backyard spaces and pools with people seeking a way to gather, cool off or exercise, for example. The way it works is pretty straightforward. They join existing backers Norwest Venture Partners and Trust Ventures. Besides Mayfield and GGV, other backers include Conrad Shang and Collin West at Ensemble Ventures and a high-profile list of validating angel investors including Airbnb co-founder Nate Blecharczyk Casey Winters, formely of Pinterest and Grubhub Lime co-founder Brad Bao Rob Chestnut, former chief ethics officer at Airbnb and eBay Instacart CEO Fidji Simo and Shef’s Alvin Salehi. To keep things flowing (couldn’t resist), the startup has just raised $40 million in a funding round led by Mayfield - just seven months after announcing a $10 million financing. And so far, business is going swimmingly. But rather than putting properties on a marketplace, Swimply came up with the idea of pairing homeowners with pools with people who want private access to them. So it’s no surprise that one of Airbnb’s most prominent investors, GGV Capital, is now backing another startup with a similar model. And there is no higher profile of how successful that model can be than Airbnb. The concept of creating a marketplace for underutilized assets that can turn into a meaningful business for hosts is not a new one.
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