Millennial, Gen-X Opps: Kindred lands Series A funding round amid spend increase (Score 47)

Sales Lead: Kindred, a home-swapping platform, just raised $15m in a Series A funding round led by New Enterprise Associates.

• Kindred launched its private beta in Spring 2022 and has reportedly experienced a tenfold increase in monthly trip bookings since then.
  • It has also received 20k membership applications so far, primarily from primary residences rather than investment houses.
• At least some of the new funds will go toward geographic expansion in regions including the US.
  • Right now, Kindred operates in more than 20 NA markets such as NY, San Francisco, LA, Miami, Seattle, Denver, Austin, Vancouver, and Mexico City.
• The company will also invest in its product and technology.
• So far, Kindred has raised a total of $26.8m in funding.
• The company will likely:
  • Keep increasing spend
  • Seek new agency partners
• Target demographic: 
  • Millennial and Gen-X homeowners

Additional spending insights:

• Digital display insights (digital ad spend and placement)
  • YTD spend: So far this year, Kindred has spent roughly $266 on digital display; by this point last year, it had not yet utilized this channel.
  • YTD data: Most of this year's spend has gone toward programmatic ads placed via Google Display Network (100%) onto site destinations such as areavibes.com (38%), oldhousedreams.com, bobvila.com, countryliving.com, and lowincomehousing.us.
  • Last year: Kindred spent approximately $1.2k on this channel in 2022 and did not utilize it at all in 2021.

Additional agency insights:

• Opportunity: Get in touch soon in case the new funding gives Kindred the financial freedom to outsource work.
  • ​​​​​​​PR/communications hires are especially likely considering the company's ongoing focus on bolstering expansion and brand awareness.
• Current agency roster:
  • ​​​​​​​No current agency relationships yet confirmed

Insight Sources: Digital spend insights estimated by Adbeat.

• Contacts:
  • ​​​​​​​Emily Maher: Manger, content marketing; emily@livekindred.com
  • Stephanie Brill: Lead, strategy & operations; stephanie@livekindred.com