Landing Closes $30 Million In Funding

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2020
  • Landing, a company that offers flexible leasing memberships for long-term living, announced that it raised $30 million in debt and equity

Landing, a company that offers flexible leasing memberships for long-term living, announced that it raised $30 million in debt and equity according to Crunchbase News. Greycroft had led the $20 million Series A funding round and it included participation from Maveron and Abstract Ventures. The remaining $10 million was in the form of a debt facility.

Including this round of funding, Landing has raised a total of $45 million. Shipt founder Bill Smith had put in $15 million to get the company started. Smith is the founder & CEO of Landing. Smith had sold Shipt to Target for $550 million in 2017.

The reason why Smith started Landing was due to the dynamics of renting being “unchanged for decades.”

“Simply put, Landing is a new way to live. We’re the first company to offer an all-inclusive long-term living experience that allows a new generation of renters the freedom to choose where and how they live. We call it “Living as a Service,” meaning we provide everything needed for a more flexible lifestyle. At Landing you get all of the comforts of home, without any of the hassle and risk that comes with traditional renting,” wrote Smith in a blog post.

A personal experience inspired Smith to launch Landing. It was in 2016 when his family moved to San Francisco as Shipt was scaling nationally.

When Smith first arrived, he was immediately struck by how challenging it was to rent an apartment. He had to make many phone calls and coordinate movers for furnishing an empty space along with setting up the utilities.

“It was a massive inconvenience and extremely tedious. Of course, I’m not alone in feeling that frustration,” added Smith.

With Landing, you work directly with property managers and apartment owners to offer studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom apartments. And renters pay $199 per year for an option to pick up and move whenever they want within the Landing network.

From there, they only need to provide a 30-day notice if they are moving to a non-Landing property. Otherwise, they just have to give a three-day notice while moving to another Landing property.

Landing handles the process of renting a property such as setting up the utilities. And Landing users can move into a fully furnished apartment with a kitchen stocked with the essentials already. Plus the company also offers an on-call concierge service. Since Landing launched last year, it set up around 300 units so far.

With this funding round, Landing plans to further expand into new markets. As of right now, it is available in 9 cities, including Austin, Texas; Birmingham, Alabama; Boston; Chicago; Los Angeles; Nashville; New York City; the San Francisco Bay Area; and Washington, D.C.  And by the end of the year, the company has a goal to be offering apartments to its members in 30 cities.

Greycroft Co-founder and Partner Ian Sigalow told Crunchbase News that Landing is unique for its flexible living membership offering and offers an important need.

“Bill’s proven success creating premier consumer businesses, such as Shipt, brings us great confidence in his ability to introduce and scale an exceptional product to the market, breathing new life into the real estate industry,” explained Dan Levitan, co-founder and partner at Maveron.