Four months after entering the UK market, controversial short-term subletting startup Kiki is following a familiar pattern as it finds its footing in London.
Manual processes powered by Instagram, limited revenue, parties, and growing costs (including visa sponsorship for newly hired staff) are already defining Kiki’s local operations. Meanwhile, the startup is publicly projecting confidence while privately acknowledging user confusion and slower winter growth.
Kiki entered the London market in July 2025, shortly after exiting New York. Its US operations had become increasingly untenable due to regulatory concerns. This week, those concerns were formalised.
New York City’s Office of Special Enforcement (OSE) confirmed that Kiki had paid a US$152,300 fine for failing to comply with Local Law 18, which governs short-term rental platforms in the city. The law requires hosts to register and platforms to verify listings, submit reports, and remove noncompliant properties.
This law was not unknown to the startup before moving to the US.
In Kiki’s 2023 investor pitch to Blackbird, the startup had flagged potential pushback. When Blackbird asked what Kiki would do if it received a cease and desist, the startup said this would be a “pioneering moment” and that it would “ignore the government” or “build a lobbying team”.
Now in London, Kiki appears to be more careful. Details regarding its listings are no longer publicly browsable. All listings are gated behind an invite-only system requiring a verified Instagram handle and a referral from an existing member. The website declares a “no weirdo policy” and explicitly discourages new users from trying to join without vetting.
“We do everything on Instagram,” the website reads. The main @kikiclub_london account is also private — a move that echoes its New York account and came after multiple reports from this publication on the startup’s NYC activities, financial model, and staff exits – including its co-founders.
Since launching in the UK, Kiki has leaned into familiar events and social rituals: a launch party followed by a ‘100 matches’ secret party in October, and ongoing “coffee catch-ups” with would-be users.
“Just made this colleague [sic] of our first 40 coffees meeting you all over the last week,” a July 10 Instagram post stated.
The startup also recently ran a member giveaway for a trip to Spain and offered free professional house cleaning for users for the month of September.
Revenue lags the hype, again
Despite the activity, the business side has been sluggish. According to an October investor update, Kiki was celebrating London users growing to 170 matches between July and October, as well as 201 listings added.
However, at the end of October, the business revenue generated in its first three-and-a-half months in London was just $18,700. It also stated that $187,000 GMV had been earned by hosts, suggesting Kiki takes roughly a 10% cut of all short-term sublets.
Still, founder Toby Thomas-Smith stated in the same non-cap investor update that Kiki was somehow “officially halfway to profitability”.
“We’re not trying to be profitable or cut costs right now, but it was awesome to see. Once our engineer and next generalist join the payroll this will obviously shift a bit,” Thomas-Smith said.
It’s unclear how this is being quantified. However, it’s worth noting that Thomas-Smith, in an earlier report covering February and March, said: “I have a separate update I send to our actual investors, and this is a top-level version of that”.
Regardless, the company is already struggling with London seasonality.
“The winter is already hitting us like a ton of bricks just as we knew it would for November, December, and January,” Thomas-Smith wrote in the October 2025 update.
“On average we see about 8 to 10 times more growth in summer than in winter. For example, we are not expecting to get over 25 matches per week during winter but know we can reach 180 to 200 matches per week at the peak of summer next year.”
These financial mixed messages echo Kiki’s pattern in New York. An investor report from earlier this year revealed that Kiki had generated just US$76,000 in revenue since ‘relaunching’ the subletting business in New York 10 months prior.
Kiki’s investor reports throughout 2024 also presented inconsistent financial figures, particularly regarding revenue, burn rate, and the company’s use of “rent saved” as a performance metric.
Meanwhile, an investor report from November 2024 showed that Kiki had US$3,823,219 in the bank just 18 months after raising US$6 million ahead of its move to New York.
A ‘hackathon’ hiring process
In October, Kiki announced it had hired its first full-time engineer — offering UK visa sponsorship for the role — and flagged plans for a second hire in a generalist operations position, also offering sponsorship.
Both hires to date are from New Zealand.
Investor notes revealed that the engineer’s six-week hiring process included a “3 day hackathon where we called for 10 hours straight each day to simulate building together,” Thomas-Smith said.
“Tems and I even did overnight shifts from 7 pm to 7 am to match NZ time.”
The result was a digital guestbook feature, “so listings can finally have reviews”.
“For anyone hiring an engineer remotely I can’t recommend this approach enough,” he added.
As of October, Kiki was offering total compensation packages of £160,000–£170,000 for the engineer role and £120,000 for the still-open generalist role.
Both include significant equity components and a base salary of £60,000–£70,000 for the engineer and £40,000 for the generalist.
Additional perks included visa sponsorship, relocation support, two free meals on weekdays, gym memberships, and temporary accommodation inside a Kiki-listed property.
In both cases, the company emphasised the potential value of early-stage equity, referencing the multimillion-pound windfalls of early Airbnb and Uber hires.
Lack of transparency
In contrast to its early NYC rollout, where listings were publicly displayed with names, photos, and apartment details, Kiki’s London model is far more opaque. Listings are only viewable to those granted access to a private Instagram loop.
The company’s internal figures show 85% of its London users are women, and 70% of listings are for single rooms in shared homes. It’s unclear how or if formal security or safety checks are carried out for the people in those shared homes, including other flatmates.
While coffee meet-ups, group chats, and a “no weirdos policy” for those listing a room are referenced in public comms, no formal screening framework from its three-person team has been disclosed, raising questions about the robustness of the onboarding process.
Kiki’s own investor updates have also flagged concerns about user confusion and platform clarity.
In the August update, the team admitted “5+ people a day ask ‘how does it work’,” and that even people who know the founders are still not using the product.
The secretive, still-largely manual model is pitched as exclusivity, but the heavy reliance on social media and word-of-mouth — with a limited viewable product — adds to the murkiness around how the business functions day-to-day, what accountability mechanisms exist and why, seven years and millions of dollars in, it’s still yet to have a modern tech stack.
“It’s different from normal B2B SaaS startups,” Thomas-Smith said in the July update.
“We’re building something that’s closer to how a country operates than a company, as we’re building our own entire economy with its own laws and norms.”
The city of New York certainly didn’t agree. It will be interesting to see how this now plays out with London’s own short-term rental laws.
We contacted Kiki for comment but did not receive a response.
- This story first appeared on SmartCompany. You can read the original here.
