MetroResidences was founded in 2014 by James Chua and Lester Kang and it matches corporate employees needing to rent for a month or more with home owners who seek tenants. It is currently active in Singapore, but has plans to expand into Hong Kong and Tokyo using this funding, which is the startup’s Series A, and takes it to $3.5 million from investors to date.
Chua and Kang started out with an Airbnb clone, but they pivoted to business users when they found corporate users and HR managers were increasing getting in touch. Likewise, on the real estate side, they realized that home owners were happier letting their properties out to professional tenants and for longer stretches than services like Airbnb usually cater to.
Kang told TechCrunch in an interview that clientele is typically multinational companies who bring staff to Singapore on short-term project work for a few months. The service is also caters to newly arrived expats. Typically, these workers are put up in a hotel until their local rental is arranged, but MetroResidences says it is replacing the hotel part of the stay for them.
Beyond the cost saving from avoiding months in a hotel, Kang said that clients also appreciate the convenience. That’s to say that they can pick a property located near their offices, or in a particular part of the city if preferred.
MetroResidences doesn’t charge a listing fee, instead it takes a cut of the booking which can vary from 10 to 25 percent. Kang said that…