Long before the likes of Airbnb and Wimdu got people excited and/or hot under the collar about rental marketplaces, there was enormous buzz surrounding Couchsurfing.
The site was created in 1999 (though some say the proper launch was in 2004) by Casey Fenton (he and Napster’s Sean Parker were the early poster-childs of the disruptive web) and, despite a number of ups and downs, has survived to this day – it just doesn’t get the same level of coverage as other sites, perhaps because the entire project was not-for-profit.
After claiming the company was finished in 2006, Couchsurfing relaunched quickly with a focus of diversity and creating “meaningful connections”, slightly whimsical and utopian in the hard world of business, but raising money, plotting eye-watering growth and hitting the trendy dot-com circuit was never Couchsurfing’s style.
All good things come to an end, however, with Benchmark Capital and Omidyar Ventures investing $7.6 million in the company this week.
Couchsurfing has also changed its company status from non-for-profit to so-called B Corporation, meaning it can act like a normal company but it complies with “comprehensive and transparent social and environmental performance standards, reach higher legal accountability standards, and build business constituency”.
