{"id":339137,"date":"2017-04-24T22:29:43","date_gmt":"2017-04-24T14:29:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1480381"},"modified":"2017-04-24T22:29:43","modified_gmt":"2017-04-24T14:29:43","slug":"recharge-which-lets-users-book-hotels-by-the-minute-just-launched-in-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/recharge-which-lets-users-book-hotels-by-the-minute-just-launched-in-new-york\/","title":{"rendered":"Recharge, which lets users book hotels by the minute, just launched in New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Recharge<\/a>, a\u00a0two-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose app enables users to book a stay in a hotel for just 66 cents a minute, is opening in select New York hotels today, after testing its service over the last year in San Francisco.<\/p>\n

The company has also raised an undisclosed amount of funding from JetBlue Technology Ventures, the corporate venture arm of airline JetBlue, which began providing seed funding to early-stage tech, travel, and hospitality startups\u00a0roughly a year ago.<\/p>\n

Recharge\u2019s\u00a0earlier investors include Binary Capital, Floodgate, entrepreneur Rick Marini, Eniac VC, Expansion VC, investors Scott and Cyan Banister and early Google engineer Harry Cheung. They\u2019d provided\u00a0the company with $2.3 million in seed funding as of June of last year.<\/p>\n

Recharge is an interesting startup, one that we\u2019ve half-kidding<\/a> compared in the past\u00a0with hotels that have long rented\u00a0rooms by the hour for illicit activities. Given the caliber of the hotels with which it\u2019s partnering, however, it\u2019s seemingly time to rethink its place in the world. In New York, customers can now book rooms at The Pierre, W New York, The Knickerbocker and 1 Hotel Central. In San Francisco, it has struck partnerships with 15 properties, from the downtown Hilton hotel\u00a0to the five-star hotel Taj Campton Place.<\/p>\n

According to cofounder and CEO Emmanuel Bamfo, Recharge, which has been used by at least 25,000 people to date, has several\u00a0primary use cases. These include business travelers who may want to freshen up before heading into a meeting; families who might be doing some\u00a0shopping and dining\u00a0and need a place to relax; and local commuters who don\u2019t have the time or inclination to ride\u00a0home between work and evening engagements.<\/p>\n

Recharge\u2019s partnership with JetBlue is purely financial for now, but Bamfo sees a day, too, when airlines use Recharge as a perk to offer\u00a0for first-class travelers. You can imagine the business traveler whose flight is delayed being given a Recharge voucher, for example.<\/p>\n

According to the 10-person company, the average stay is two hours. Customers of its most expensive hotels pay\u00a0$3 a minute for the service, money that it shares with the hotel. Bamfo says the revenue split depends on the day and the time and the time of month. (Hotels are always\u00a0trying to maximize RevPAR, or the revenue pulled in from each available room.)<\/p>\n

Bamfo also says that 75 percent of the people who\u2019ve tried out the service so far have used it more than once. \u201cWe have a lot of recurrent customers who use it several times a week, and sometimes even more than once in the same day. \u201cThe ultimate idea, he says, is \u201cto provide a\u00a0bed, bath and shower at the right price point, no matter where you are in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the company to truly scale, one might imagine that subscriptions would need to come into play. Imagine buying a\u00a0package of, say, 10 hours to stay in hotels in San Francisco or New York to be used within a certain amount of time. Ask about them, Bamfo says there\u2019s high-demand for such a product, and that subscriptions are likely coming.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see a lot of ways to [generate] incremental revenue,\u201d he says, including hotel subscriptions that include food, massages, even personal trainers. \u00a0\u201cThere a lot of things we could be, and will be, doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pictured above, left to right, cofounders Will Johnson, Emmanuel (\u201cManny\u201d) Bamfo, and Chris Lo.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" Recharge, a\u00a0two-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose app enables users to book a stay in a hotel for just 66 cents a minute, is opening in select New York hotels today, after testing its service over the last year in San Francisco.
\nThe company has also raised an undisclosed amount of funding from JetBlue Technology Ventures, the corporate venture arm of airline JetBlue, which began… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

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