PeerSpace Raises $1.5 Million To Create An Airbnb For Creative Work And Meeting Spaces

Airbnb has built a huge platform that allows users to rent out their rooms and homes to people looking for a place to stay. But what about when businesses want to find interesting spots to hold meetings, brainstorming sessions, or team offsites? For that, they have a new startup called PeerSpace.

Billing itself as a sort of Airbnb for creative spaces, PeerSpace has built a marketplace that allows businesses with unique places to monetize them when they’re not in use. Think dance studios or art galleries or photography studios that go unused a couple of times a week and could be rented out to teams that want to get out of their cube farms for a day.

Who would want to use those spaces? People at companies like LinkedIn, Instacart, General Assembly, and Fitmob, among others, all of which have used the platform to find places to do off-site activities in the Bay Area. Those activities could include anything from meetups to classes to team-building exercises.

PeerSpace makes it easy for hosts to create listings for their spaces with a mobile app. They can set rates for renting out the space, manage their calendar, and accept requests from customers who would like to take their spot over for a little bit.

It’s trying to get both sides of the marketplace up and running, but early signs are encouraging: the company is seeing 37 percent month-over-month growth in bookings and 30 percent of customers who have tried the platform have used it a second time.

PeerSpace was founded by Rony Chammas and Matt Bendett, who previously worked together at EA. It also hired Jeanine Johnson, who had held positions at Flextronics, Amazon, and Microsoft, as its CTO.

The company has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from investors that include Structure Capital, Ran Makavy, Michael Horwitz, Ron Pizzuti and other angels. After five months operating in the San Francisco Bay Area, it plans to use the funding to expand to a couple more markets by the end of the year.