Aisha Pandor and Alen Ribic are the co-founders of SweepSouth – an online platform for connecting homeowners with excellent, reliable, experienced domestic cleaning professionals – basically Uber for cleaning professionals. We bumped into them at the recent Start-Up South Africa event where they walked away as winners in the Get Up Start-up competition with an… Read more
Brett Meyers is CEO & Co-Founder of the online p2p currency exchange platform CurrencyFair. Started five years ago, CurrencyFair has raised €5m in funding and currently serves more than 50,000 clients across 20 currencies. Can you describe CurrencyFair and how it began? CurrencyFair grew out of our own needs, as expats living in Ireland, to transfer money internationally between… Read more
Jacando is a Swiss marketplace for micro-jobs. Private customers but also businesses can find a helping hand for various tasks, including gardening, moving, pet-sitting or an actual job position. In this interview, Dennis Teichmann tells us more about Jacando, the role of micro-jobs in Switzerland and his approach of developing and growing the business. Stella Schieffer,… Read more
“Lyft is announcing this morning that it has sold off its legacy ride-matching business Zimride to rental car giant Enterprise Holdings. The sale will allow Lyft to focus on its fast-growing, on-demand ride-sharing business, while also adding to its war chest as the company expands into new markets and competes against the likes of Uber and SideCar.”… Read more
Conyac offers peer-reviewed crowd-sourced translation, facilitating Web site localization for Japanese startups looking to expand into other countries. Companies that have used Conyac’s services include Nulab, a real-time collaboration platform, and SD Japan, which posts news articles originally written in other languages. Conyac translates their Web sites, apps and social games into English and other languages… Read more
Planeless pilots are in luck with Monday’s launch of OpenAirplane—a Zipcar-style service for renting small airplanes. Pilots can reserve on their phone, and will arrive to find keys waiting for them in the plane. Similar to other collaborative consumption services, rental companies will rate pilots based on the condition of the plane, and pilots are… Read more
For those who open up their property as accommodation for travelers while they’re away, or are simply too busy to meet up with their guests, Urban Bellhop has a team of professional rental hosts who can act as a middleman between the two parties. Hosts can register their property with Urban Bellhop and allow them… Read more
Bangalore-based ZoomCar India Private Ltd which operates the membership-based car rental service ZoomCar.in has raised $30,000 angel funding from the former US treasury secretary Larry Summers in form of warrants, reports TechCircle, adding that the company plans to use the investment raised to procure more cars. ZoomCar is an Indian membership-based car sharing service, which allows users to book cars on a hourly… Read more
“As a start-up, Zipcar disrupted the established car ownership model. We held the belief that the status quo was no longer the best way to meet people’s needs in the modern urban environment. The current economic climate only places a greater focus on convenient, cost-effective and flexible business solutions – and the Smarter Business Blueprint… Read more