We scour the internet to find the most interesting news on the collaborative consumption front. Here are our picks for the week:
Kitchensurfing raises $15 million for private chef marketplace – Fortune Tech
Erin Griffith, Fortune
Kitchensurfing has raised $15 million in a Series B round of funding led by Tiger Global Management, with participation from prior investors Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital. The round brings Kitchensurfing’s total funding to $19.5 million. The company would not comment on valuation, but a source familiar with the round said it was at least $40 million.
Mila sees big firms using web to outsource customer support
Caroline Copley, Reuters
Mila, a Swiss peer-to-peer online marketplace for services ranging from IT support to furniture assembly, expects big European firms to turn to such platforms as a cheap way to improve their customer care.
A Sharing Economy Cliffhanger: What Will Governments Do?
Wingham Rowan, Stanford Social Innovation Review
Earlier this month, a group backed by companies including Airbnb and Taskrabbit began urging users to petition for changes in regulation—will politicians uphold the rules or loosen them? Or is there is a third option?
Nonprofits Should Lead the Sharing Economy
Erin Morgan Gore, Stanford Social Innovation Review
The sharing economy is creating new business models, forcing traditional for-profit businesses to adapt or fall behind. The same will hold true for the social sector.
What’s Old Becomes New: Regulating the Sharing Economy
Boston Bar Journal, Molly Cohen and Corey Zehngebot
This trend has attracted significant attention from thought leaders (in 2011, Time Magazine crowned it one of ten ideas that will change the world), venture capital (Uber recently received $258M in funding from Google Ventures, and a recent round of financing for Airbnb would value it above $10B), the media, and, most recently, Congress. Nevertheless, regulatory mechanisms have not kept pace.
Internet karma: how the shareconomy is making the world better (and your life more exciting)
Jamie Condliffe, Stuff
Meet the websites that reinvent community spirit by letting you borrow from and lend to others.
The sharing economy
Tracy Lindeman, Montreal Gazette
Also known as collaborative consumption, it’s a movement that is changing the way some of us share our assets.
FCA regulations and what they mean for the crowdfunding industry
Söla Paterson-Marke, growthbusiness.co.uk
On the eve of the new rules dictating how the crowdfunding market must operate, Söla Paterson-Marke, associate at DLA Piper, examines what has been done to protect investors.
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