Sometimes, you need to wait a long time for the chance to invest in an outstanding founder.
I met Adam Doppelt five years ago. He’s the co-founder of Urbanspoon, the popular restaurant review site and app. He also co-founded Cubeduel, a site that lets you rank your co-workers and Strangeberry, a digital media startup that was acquired by TiVo in 2004. Unfortunately for myself and other investors, Adam never took outside money to build his companies.
But finally the day has come and I’m happy to announce that Version One – together with our friends at Maveron – is leading the seed round for Dwellable, Adam’s latest gig. Dwellable helps people find private vacation properties to rent, targeting a market defined by HomeAway, VRBO, and to some extent, AirBnB. What makes Dwellable different is that it provides the best mobile experience. Anybody who has ever tried to find a vacation rental online knows how terrible the system is… terrible looking sites, clumsy navigation, out-of-date or inaccurate calendar information, bad photos, etc.
Dwellable’s listing pages are cleanly laid out and intuitive. The calendar information is included right in the listing body (so you know right away if a place is available for your vacation or not). In addition, Dwellable is the only company to provide a dedicated tablet app.
What’s really smart is that Adam hired Kirby Winfield as CEO to help build a big company, while Adam can focus on building a great product.
It will still take some time for Dwellable to build out its selection of listings, but I am truly excited about the state of the current product, the product that is to come, and the opportunity to work with Adam and Kirby in building an amazing company in the travel space.
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