The world is rife with me-too startups, which makes it all the more refreshing when a founder comes along that manages to find a broken market that’s hiding in plain sight.

That’s what Mike Kennedy appears to be doing with Koala, a young outfit determined to update the stodgy world of property time-share management, wherein people acquire points or otherwise pay for a unit at a timeshare resort that they intend to regularly use or swap or rent out (or all three).

It’s a big and growing market. According to data published last year by EY, the U.S. timeshare industry grew nearly 7% between 2017 and 2018 to hit $10.2 billion in sales volume.

It’s a market that Kennedy became acquainted with first-hand as a sales executive at the Hilton Club in New York, which, at least in 2018, was among 1,580 timeshare resorts up and running, representing approximately 204,100 units, most of them with two bedrooms or more.

Despite this growth, timeshares don’t jump to travelers’ minds as readily as hotel rooms or Airbnb stays, and therein lies the opportunity.

Part of the problem, as Kennedy see it, is that timeshares are harder to rent out than they should be. If a timeshare owner wants to reserve a week outside of the week that he or she purchased, for example, that person has to go through an antiquated exchange system like RCI (owned by Wyndam) or Interval International (owned by Marriott). Kennedy, who spent 10 years with Hilton, says he saw a number of his customers grow frustrated over time with their inability to better control their units’ usage.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Even amid the pandemic, this newly funded travel startup is tackling the stodgy timeshare market

Calling all early-stage startup founders. You have a mere 48 hours left to save on your ticket to engage with leading experts at TC Early Stage 2020 on July 21-22. No one’s born knowing how to build a successful startup, and this online event provides the essential building blocks you need to flatten your learning curve. Prices increase tomorrow, June 26 at 11:59 p.m. (PDT). Beat the deadline and buy your pass today.

We’ve tapped leading experts, gurus, maestros and mavens across the startup ecosystem for two days of workshops designed to give you actionable tips and advice on everything a startup founder needs to know. We’re talking information you can apply to your startup now; at the time you need it most.

You can choose from more than 50 presentations that address topics vital to startup success — from fundraising, tech stack and growth marketing to term sheet construction, recruitment, product management and PR. Hear from the experts and ask them questions — each session offers plenty of interaction.

Each session can accommodate about 100 people. If you have questions you want to ask in a given session, sign up quickly because seats are available on a first-come, first-serve basis. As a ticket holder you’ll have exclusive, on-demand access to all the session videos after the event.

Pro tip: If you run into a schedule conflict, you can drop a breakout session and choose another one.

Here’s a taste of what’s on offer at Early Stage 2020 — be sure to check out all the breakout sessions.

• How to get into Y Combinator: The seed-stage venture firm has come to form its own startup economy over the years, with its network of companies and founders interconnecting across the tech industry and beyond. Find out how Y Combinator works today, and how you can become a part of it, in this discussion with head of admissions Dalton Caldwell.
• How to craft your pitch deck: Talk through the nuts and bolts of what makes a great deck (or not) with Amy Saper, Partner at Accel as she goes through your submitted pitches live on stage. You can submit your pitchdeck to be reviewed here.
• Security for startups: When starting your company, engineering teams are small and the priority is growth. Most people would like to protect their users, but don’t know how to do that with limited resources. How should we think about security for startups? Hear how serial security entrepreneur Elissa Shevinsky has built secure startups from the ground up and what other startups learn from her years of experience.

Tune in to TC Early Stage on July 21-22, squash your learning curve and keep your business moving forward. You have 48 hours left to save some dough. Buy your ticket before the price goes up on June 26 at 11:59 p.m. (PDT).

Is your company interested in sponsoring the TC Early Stage? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

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Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Just 48 hours left to save on TC Early Stage tickets

As the IPO market heats up, one offering slipped beneath our radar. This morning, then, we’ll catch up on Accolade’s initial public offering and what its proposed pricing may tell us about the state of the IPO market.

The Exchange is a daily look at startups and the private markets for Extra Crunch subscribers; use code EXCHANGE to get full access and take 25% off your subscription.

Catching everyone back up, Accolade sells its service to employers who in turn offer it to their employees; the company’s tech provides a portal for individuals to “better understand, navigate and utilize the health care system and their workplace benefits,” Accolade states in its S-1 filings.

The firm goes on to point out that the U.S. health care system is complex, which puts “significant strain on consumers.” Correct. Its solution? To help “consumers make better, data-driven health care and benefits-related decisions” through its service by selling a “platform to support and influence consumer decision-making that is built on a foundation of mission-driven people and purpose-built technology.”

Yeah.

Regardless of that verbiage, Accolade’s business has proven sufficiently attractive to allow the firm to file to go public in late February, around when Procore filed. Both companies delayed their offerings, but Procore raised more private capital, a $150 million round that values it at around $5 billion. Accolade, to our knowledge, did not raise more funds. So, its IPO is back on and today we have its pricing interval.

Let’s unpack its pricing range, write some notes on its recent financial results and try to figure out how ambitious Accolade is being in terms of its expected valuation as it counts down to trading publicly.

Accolade’s S-1/A

According to Accolade’s June 24th S-1/A, the company expects a $19 to $21 per-share IPO price range. The company intends to sell 8.75 million shares in its debut, not counting a 1,312,500 share greenshoe option offered to its underwriters. Discounting the extra shares, Accolade would raise between $166.3 million to $183.8 million in its debut; inclusive of greenshoe shares, the total fundraise grows to a range of $191.2 million to $211.3 million.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | As the IPO market warms, Accolade targets billion-dollar debut