Lifestyle service provider, Spruce, announcing it raised $26 million dollars in a Series B round led by Sweat Equity Partners.  Through its app, Spruce offers housekeeping and pet care to residents at more than 2,300 select apartment communities across the U.S.  Along with the funding round, Spruce is announcing it has tapped a new CEO.  Steven Pho, CEO of Spruce, joins Cheddar News to discuss.

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Lifestyle Service Provider Spruce Raises $26 Million, Brings on New CEO

Lifestyle service provider spruce raising 26 million and the series B round led by sweat equity partners. And through the Spruce offers housekeeping and pet care residents at more than 2300 select department communities across the us. Well, along with the funding rounds, Bruce today is announcing that it's tapped a new Ceo and he's joining us now the newly appointed Ceo of Spruce, Stephen, faux as Stephen. Congratulations. It's good to see you and give us some more details as to the direction that you're taking this company. Perfect. Well thank you christian for having having me on. This is a very exciting day for spruce to announce our financing is a testament to the team that the that they put in and also the faith of our investors, really a validation of our company and support going forward. So really happy to be here today. Founded back in 2016 based in austin texas. What's the demand that you've seen Steven for this company? Especially as we're trying to make our way into a post pandemic world? Yeah. You know, we're we're definitely entering that phase, but I think what we've been focusing on is really about value that we provide. So, um you know, I think the tea leaves would suggest that there's um some economic recession coming our way and I don't have a really crystal ball to see what that's gonna look like. But what I can refer to is sort of what's happened here at spruce over the last couple of years during the pandemic. We doubled down during the pandemic and really continue to build our product. And we we saw the we started seeing the results of that in 2021 we grew triple digits. Um and we're seeing the same result going to 2022. So going from strength to strength. So super proud of that. And so I think the key to that is really continuing to provide value for our customers. It's a service and product that they're looking for and we're gonna continue to do that. What are some of the apartment communities as steven that you currently serve and ones that you're targeting in the future? Sure. So we're currently in 18 markets now. 600,000 units. Our goal is to get that to about 1.5 million units over the next couple of years. Um And these these buildings are in select cities and states that we're targeting, they're mostly class B. Class A. Class A. Plus buildings. Um usually about calling 150-200 units plus a very large multi family communities. We've also expanded into short short term rentals as well as, you know, it's a very growing piece of hospitality these days and require home cleaning services as well. I know your company also recently launched what it calls a new full service short term rental turnover solution. What exactly is this? Yeah. So this is where we partner with a lot of the big short term rental owners um naturally. Um So these are property owners who own these short term rentals throughout the US. And one of the biggest pain points for them, as you can imagine is making sure they get consistent quality service for each one of their units. So if someone's coming in on a sunday or moving out on a sunday at 11 a.m. And someone's moving in by five, they need to make sure that that property has a high level of bar in terms of what the quality of service that needs provide. And they're turning to us because of the quality we provide and the national reach that we have. And so that's a very small but growing piece of our business that we're going to continue to focus on. I will recently raised a lot of money. So certainly momentum behind your company, Stephen 26 million in a series B round led by sweat equity partners, how are we gonna use that money to grow? Uh two folds, one people, you know, I mean, I think people are what make this work and we're gonna continue to double down in terms of our headcount. So a lot of it around product engineering, sales, and marketing. Uh we want to continue to invest in our people to build the service and quality service, quality service that we want in the product that we want um into expansion as I alluded to earlier, we're in about 600,000 units right now. We want to get that about 1.5 million the next year and a half or so. Um that's really can continue to expand our reach and really build a really quality service and products. So we do see companies Stephen Apple, I guess being the latest one announcing that they're they are planning to slow hiring in this current environment um unclear whether or not we'll have a recession, certainly an economic slowdown underway as prices rise perhaps in the next few years, we could see a recession, but it sounds like regardless your company with this new fresh funding is looking to hire up and expand. Is that the case? That is, that's right. You know, we find this as we're in a very good position in terms of we're well capitalized, continue to take market share and continue to grow and we're gonna continue to do that. All right, we're gonna leave it there, Stephen, faux congratulations stevens, Ceo of Spruce, We appreciate coming on the show.