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§ Private Profile · New York City, NY, USA
Social home exchange platform connecting like-minded travelers to swap homes for free accommodation, focused on local immersion.
CasaHop was a US-based social home exchange platform that connected like-minded travelers through social graphs to facilitate free accommodation swaps. The company targeted the broader travel sector by providing users with local accommodation options, while exploring various monetization strategies such as freemium concierge services, insurance add-ons, management fees, and affiliate revenues. Before officially ceasing operations in January 2013 due to a failure to gain sufficient traction within the niche home exchange market, the enterprise had successfully scaled its workforce to a team of 16 employees distributed across nine different countries. To support its initial development and expansion efforts, the startup secured $1.2 million in funding from a syndicate of prominent investors, including Lerer Ventures, First Round Capital, Betaworks, and Andre Balazs. CasaHop was founded in 2012 by Paul Berry, Florent Peyre, and Kriti Godey.
CasaHop has raised $1.0M across 1 funding round.
CasaHop has raised $1.0M in total across 1 funding round.
CasaHop has raised $1.0M across 1 funding round. Most recently, it raised $1.0M Seed in June 2012.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 1, 2012 | $1M Seed | First Round Capital | Alumni Ventures, Betaworks Ventures, Bowery Capital, General Catalyst, Haystack, Kamran Ansari, Kitchen Table Partners, Lead Edge Capital, Mayfield, Next Play Capital, Redpoint Ventures, SRB Ventures, WGI Group, MAX Mullen, Noah Goodhart, RON Pragides, Scott Banister, Siqi Chen, SRI Batchu, Zander Lurie | Announced |
CasaHop has raised $1.0M in total across 1 funding round.
CasaHop's investors include First Round Capital, Alumni Ventures, Betaworks Ventures, Bowery Capital, General Catalyst, Haystack, Kamran Ansari, Kitchen Table Partners, Lead Edge Capital, Mayfield, Next Play Capital, Redpoint Ventures.
# CasaHop: A Technology Company Overview
CasaHop was a social home exchange platform that connected travelers with accommodation through their existing social networks, offering free home swaps as an alternative to traditional paid travel accommodations.[1][2] Founded in 2012, the New York-based startup aimed to democratize travel by eliminating accommodation costs, allowing users to exchange homes with trusted connections rather than paying for hotels or rental services.[2][3]
The company operated in the collaborative consumption space, positioning itself as a technology-enabled solution to make travel accessible to people regardless of budget.[2] CasaHop's core value proposition centered on leveraging social graphs to build trust within its community, differentiating itself from competitors like Airbnb and CouchSurfing by combining the home exchange model with a completely free offering.[3]
CasaHop was founded by Paul Berry (CEO), Florent Peyre (co-founder and president), and Kriti Godey (CTO), launching in May 2012 with a team of 16 people across nine countries.[2] The founders were motivated by the belief that enriching travel experiences should be accessible to everyone regardless of financial constraints.[3]
The startup quickly gained traction, raising $1.2 million in seed funding from a prestigious investor group including hotelier Andre Balazs, MTV founder Bob Pittman, Lerer Ventures, First Round Capital, and Betaworks.[1][2] This early validation reflected confidence in the home exchange market and the founders' vision for transforming travel through collaborative consumption.
However, CasaHop's trajectory was short-lived. By January 2013—just over a year after launch—the company shut down and returned remaining funds to investors, with founders deciding that competitors had become too established and mature to compete effectively.[1] The team subsequently pivoted to focus on RebelMouse, a different venture.
CasaHop emerged during the peak of the collaborative consumption movement (2011-2013), riding the wave of peer-to-peer sharing economy platforms.[2][3] The timing positioned it within broader trends of environmental consciousness, economic recovery from the 2008 financial crisis, and growing skepticism of traditional hospitality models.[2]
The company represented an early attempt to apply social networking principles to travel accommodation—a precursor to how platforms would later integrate social verification and community trust mechanisms. While CasaHop itself failed to achieve scale, it contributed to validating the home exchange market segment that competitors like Airbnb would eventually dominate through different business models and greater capital resources.
CasaHop's shutdown illustrates a critical lesson in startup competition: first-mover advantage and innovative positioning are insufficient without sufficient capital and execution speed to outpace well-funded rivals. Despite a compelling free model and strong founding team, the company couldn't overcome the momentum of better-capitalized competitors who were scaling faster and building network effects more aggressively.
The platform's emphasis on social graph-based trust and community-driven growth foreshadowed features that would become standard in later sharing economy platforms. Had CasaHop survived, it might have influenced how the broader travel tech industry approached trust and community building—though its free model would have required solving the monetization puzzle that ultimately contributed to its demise.