Aug 12, 2015

Tags: Airbnb , rentmethod Image Credit: Paul Sawers / VentureBeat Correction: This is not a formal acquisition. RentMethod is shutting down and two of its founders have joined Airbnb. The founders of apartment rental company RentMethod  have joined  Airbnb  and will be shuttering their company on August 31. Customers who used RentMethod are being encouraged to port over their data to other solutions, to which the company will provide a list in the future. None of RentMethod’s assets have been acquired. Founded in 2012, RentMethod billed itself as making it easier for apartment owners to rent out their residences. The platform offered tour scheduling, apartment showings, facilitated rental applications, and more through its website and even had a team of real estate agents on-demand. The company was founded by Willem Bult, Greg Sirotek, and Alfonso Acevedo. However, only Bult and Sirotek transitioned to Airbnb; Acevedo has departed to take a role at Intuit. After being around for three years, the company also went through Stanford’s StartX accelerator program in fall 2014. Although neither company has shared what the RentMethod founders are going to be doing, a scan of LinkedIn shows that RentMethod’s chief executive Sirotek is now working on Airbnb’s Supply Growth team, while Bult is a software engineer  with the company. Sponsored by VB Join us at GrowthBeat where thought leaders from the biggest brands will share winning growth strategies on August 17-18 in San Francisco. Sign up now! It appears that the RentMethod transition went down in May, according to when both Sirotek and Bult updated their LinkedIn profiles. Additionally, RentMethod’s website is no longer fully operational. Airbnb declined to comment. Here’s the email that RentMethod sent out: We started RentMethod with a mission to connect people with the places they love. Today, we’re thrilled to announce that RentMethod joined with Airbnb! The past few years have been amazing, challenging, and overall a rewarding experience. With the support of our community, we helped tens of thousand of renters search for their home in the Bay Area. We’d like to thank our users, customers, mentors, investors, and the StartX community for being part of this journey. Every piece of feedback, comment, and your support helped get us to where we are today. RentMethod’s products will shut down August 31st. As part of the transition, we recommend porting over data to other solutions before then. More information: Airbnb Founded in August 2008 and based in San Francisco, California, Airbnb is a community marketplace for people to list, discover, and book unique spaces around the world online or from an iPhone device. Whether the available space is a ca... read more »