Blackbird backs New Zealand Airbnb hopeful with Big Apple dreams
Blackbird Ventures has backed a little-known New Zealand subletting platform Kiki, as the startup tries to take a bite of the Big Apple.
Sources said the Australian venture capital investor ploughed $US4.5 million ($7 million) into Kiki’s seed round (formerly EasyRent) via its New Zealand and Australia 2022 funds.
Blackbird co-founders Niki Scevak and Rick Baker. Natalie Boog
Blackbird is understood to own around 16 per cent of the company, which attracted a post-money valuation of $US28 million. Blackbird declined to comment on Wednesday.
Kiki is an invite-only peer-to-peer subletting platform that allows a lessor to select a tenant the same way two people may match on dating app Tinder. The company was founded by New Zealand university graduate Toby Thomas-Smith in 2020 to connect students and professionals with rentals of less than six months.
It expanded its operations to Sydney at the end of 2021, signing up thousands to the platform, and is set to “go all in on” launching in New York. It’s said to be trying to get in on the twenty-something digital nomad trend, where young workers live and work digitally in various locations around the world rather than being in a fixed location.
The company raised almost a quarter of a million from big-name investors including Airtasker co-founder Jonathan Lui, Vend founder Vaughan Fergusson and early-stage venture firm NZVC in a pre-seed round in November 2022.
Blackbird hit the fundraising trail in March 2022, seeking to raise capital for three funds: an Australian core ($200 million to $300 million), an NZ core ($NZ100 million to $NZ150million), and a follow-on fund ($700 million to $1.3 billion) that would invest in more matured investments from the core funds. The fund is
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