Onefinestay, The Upmarket Airbnb, Expands Its ‘Unhotel' To Paris & LA

Onefinestay, the self-styled ‘unhotel’ that can be described as an upmarket Airbnb offering a select portfolio of luxury, city-centre homes kitted out with fancy linens, towels and toiletries so its users can enjoy premium city breaks in locals’ homes, has launched its service in two new locations — bringing its total operational footprint to four. The two new cities, launching today with 24 host homes apiece, are Paris and LA.

Paris and LA were the two most requested locations by onefinestay users and also potential hosts, founder and CEO Greg Marsh tells TechCrunch. The nature of onefinestay’s business requires a supply of upmarket yet frequently unoccupied homes — and Hollywood’s film industry fits that bill perfectly, with plenty of fancy homes in the Hollywood hills whose owners may well be travelling for months on movie-related business. Paris, meanwhile, has lots of pied-à-terre stock which onefinestay can make use of, says Marsh.

“Our guests are people who would otherwise be staying at upscale, boutique hotels,” he adds, discussing the choice of location. “For us it’s partly about where are the places which people who stayed with us before will want to go and therefore would want to stay with us again if they could?’

Keyvan Nilforoushan, former Managing Partner at VC firm NextStage has been appointed as General Manager of onefinestay’s Paris operation. Launch homes are in neighbourhoods including Le Marais, Montmartre and Batignolles, with prices ranging from €150 per night for a  one bedroom apartment to more than €700 per night for a four bedroom home.

While its Los Angeles expansion is being led by Alexandra Rethore, who joined onefinestay from Rent the Runway where she was Director of Operations.  Initial homes in LA are in Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades, Venice, Brentwood and Hollywood, with prices ranging from $250 per night for a one bedroom apartment to more than $2,000 per night for a four bedroom house in Venice.

After launching in these two new cities, onefinestay plans to take a breather from new launches for a couple of months to ensure both markets are ticking over before likely ramping up to launch a new city every quarter (“or thereabouts”), according to Marsh. The next two locations aren’t entirely set in stone yet, but he says to expect one in Europe and one in the U.S.

“It’s the sort of places which you’d probably want to go if you were travelling to the states and you had a week free,” he adds.

onefinestay is a U.K. startup founded in September 2009. It launched its unhotel offering in London around three years ago, where it now has more than 1,000 host homes for travellers to pay to stay in and is able to turn a profit in the market, according to Marsh — which he says “proves the model”. It is not, however, breaking out any customer numbers — but Marsh will say the business has “grown at a pretty steady clip”, adding: “We’re more than 3.5 x the size we were this time last year.”

After London, in 2012 it added New York (where it now has 300 homes), raising a $12 million Series B, led by Canaan Partners, to help fund the expansion. That round brought its total funding to around $16 million, although it’s likely raised more than that as Marsh says some of onefinestay’s funding has not been made public. It’s also not currently looking to raise a new round, despite doubling its city count — and increasing  its on-the-ground headcount to serve the new markets.

What about competition? Airbnb just appointed a global head of hospitality with a remit to improve the guest experience — which potentially starts to stay into onefinestay’s upscale territory, at least for a portion of the homes on Airbnb’s books.

“I’m not sure who we should be most scared of. So we’re a little bit scared of everybody,” says Marsh. “I think though at the moment at least we don’t see many other companies trying to do what we’re doing. We see lots of local mom & pop operators in every market, who have been doing this often for many, many years.

“We’ve been in the market for just over three years, since we launched in London, so we’re still an early stage business in some senses, although we’re growing fast. But I’m sure that there will be competitors who come in. I’m also not sure that it’s going to be as competitive a space early in its evolution as businesses which are less complex.”

Onefinestay, The Upmarket Airbnb, Expands Its ‘Unhotel' To Paris & LA