After six years of helping apartment residents with their household chores, Austin startup Spruce has reached a major milestone in its growth trajectory.
The company announced on Tuesday that it raised $26 million in Series B financing. The capital raise brings the company’s total funding to $40 million, including an $8 million Series A from November of 2020.
The Series B round was led by Sweat Equity Partners, with participation from SoftBank Corp., Mercury Fund, Fitz Gate Ventures, Seamless Capital, Raven One Ventures and New Age Ventures.
Spruce launched in 2016 after founder Ben Johnson noticed that 15 different dog walkers came to his apartment building every day. By choosing one dog-walking service for the building, he thought, apartment managers would have less people to vet. Plus, residents might see cost savings from the increased efficiency.
When he couldn’t get his neighbors to agree on a dog-walking service, he launched Spruce, which provides apartment residents with on-demand housekeeping, pet care and laundry from experienced and vetted contractors.
The company serves more than 2,300 apartment communities throughout the country. It recently expanded its services to single-family homeowners in Austin as well as to short-term rentals listed by Migo, a home-sharing service created by RealPage in partnership with Airbnb.
Spruce currently has 59 full-time employees and 41 part-time employees. Of the full-time employees, 54 percent live in Texas and 37 percent live in the Austin area. To meets its growth objectives, Spruce plans to nearly double its employee headcount, with a focus on product, engineering and sales roles.
Although Spruce is a fully-distributed company, the anticipated growth has prompted the company to look for an Austin office space, as it wants to provide local employees with a place to meet and collaborate as needed.
In addition to the funding news, the company announced that tech executive Steven Pho will become Spruce’s new CEO. Johnson, Spruce’s former CEO, will serve as the company’s president. Pho has been on the Spruce board since September of 2020 and has held leadership positions at RetailMeNot, Forager and Favor Delivery, according to his LinkedIn.
“Over the past six years, Spruce has helped to transform both the multifamily and the housekeeping industries and has experienced phenomenal growth in the process,” Johnson said in a statement. “I am incredibly excited to work with Steven through our next phase of growth as we accelerate our pace with this new funding.”
