Extended-stay startup Zeus has inked employee housing deals with customers like scooter company Bird. Now, it's expanding to New York.

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Extended-stay startup Zeus has inked employee housing deals with customers like scooter company Bird. Now, it's expanding to New York.

Zeus Living NYC

Zeus Living

The view from inside a Zeus Living in NYC

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  • Zeus Living, a short-term rental company launched in 2015, is expanding to the New York City area. It will add apartments in Manhattan, Hoboken, Jersey City, and Long Island City to the 1,600 it already rents out around the country.
  • The company, which also operates in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Washington DC, rents furnished properties for stays longer than 30 days.
  • Zeus often hosts business travelers. It partners with companies like scooter startup Bird, which use Zeus instead of extended-stay hotels for employees on extended trips.

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Zeus Living, a short-term rental company that launched in 2015, is coming to New York City.

The short-term rental world has heated up over the past few years, with companies like Sonder and Lyric looking to lure customers with a combination of the hominess of an Airbnb and the consistency and amenities of a hotel. Sonder recently closed a $210 million Series D funding round, bringing it to a valuation of over $1 billion, while Airbnb led Lyric's $160 million Series B round earlier this year.

Zeus, which already operates in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Washington, DC, provides furnished apartments for stays longer than 30 days. Zeus often hosts business travelers, and partners with companies that have an ongoing need for employee housing.

Zeus Living will add apartments in Manhattan, Hoboken, Jersey City, and Long Island City to the 1,600 it already operates around the country. New York, with 13 million business travelers in 2017, will be a proving ground for Zeus's business traveler-centric model.

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Zeus Living has received $14.1 million in equity funding and $10 million in debt funding, and has received funding from MetaProp and Y Combinator.

Zeus Living has a 30-day minimum stay, while other short-term rental companies may allow a stay as short as one night. According to Zeus' CEO and cofounder Kulveer Taggar, the company's average stay length is three months. Its enterprise clients include electric scooter startup Bird, which is using Zeus rentals instead of extended-stay hotels for employees.

ServiceTitan, a home maintenance software company, has been using Zeus for almost a year to house international employees that are visiting its offices outside Los Angeles. Before ServiceTitan's contract with Zeus, it coordinated stays from two weeks to three months with a collection of local hotels.

Ariana Ceballos, facilities and operations associate manager at ServiceTitan, used to spend up to five hours a week coordinating with a patchwork of hotels and short-term rental providers. Sometimes, she would need to set up background checks for employees and even occasionally used her own money for security deposits (she was reimbursed).

"We wanted them to feel like they're coming home to a home," Ceballos said. She said the cost, not counting the time saved, is pretty much the same as with hotels.

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Zeus, unlike other short-term rental providers, serves three customers, CEO Taggar told Business Insider: the real estate partners it leases space from, the travelers who stay in the homes, and the businesses that use them for travelling employees.

Similar to other short-term rental operators, it leases space from landlords in order to rent it out. As of now, it has focused xpansion on "depth not breadth," providing different types of properties in one area to cater to employees from a range of companies.

"Our ambition is to have a presence in every major global metro," Taggar said.

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