Danish former Airbnb entrepreneurs behind a new startup venture

“We Want to Get Danes Out of the Cities”

Landfolk.com launches on February 1. The vision is to establish Northern Europe’s leading community for hand-picked, fantastic vacation homes, booked directly with local hosts, powered by world-class technology.

The idea behind the new startup stems from a love of the vacation home as a sanctuary, but also from a deep-seated frustration with an outdated approach to renting, finding, and booking the perfect vacation home.

“We need to shake up the vacation home market and create a community where the owners of Denmark’s many beautiful vacation home gems can share their homes with like-minded people in a safe, easy, and modern way” – Christian Schwarz Lausten, co-founder

160,000 vacation homes in Denmark are currently not being rented out

The high level of interest and demand for vacations in Denmark is good news for Danish vacation destinations. But as a vacation destination, we have a huge problem. There are about 200,000 vacation homes in Denmark, but 160,000 are never rented out. At the same time, they stand empty an average of 300 days a year—which is neither sustainable nor in line with the sharing economy, especially when so many people dream of getting out of the cities but don’t own a vacation home themselves.

Landfolk is a new community aimed at the Instagram generation

“There’s a huge audience on Instagram that loves sharing stories about their vacation homes with each other. That’s the audience we’re targeting and understand—we speak the same language.” – Cathrine K. Reimann, co-founder

The team behind Landfolk knows from their experience and market insight that it’s all about handpicking the perfect vacation homes—those with plenty of charm, style, and personality. These are the kinds of homes that today’s vacationers want to stay in, and they’re the ones in shortest supply. At the same time, the platform needs to be sleek and user-friendly. The technology behind it is state-of-the-art and, right from the start, delivers a range of benefits that both vacation home owners and guests will enjoy: a better booking experience, better service, greater security, and better prices.

“We never really thought we’d want to share our vacation home with others, but Landfolk just makes so much sense when we can do it in a flexible way where we’re in control and where we know that the people behind it have a passion and love for vacation home life and nature experiences, just like us.” – Kirstine Gravgaard, vacation home owner in Hjarbæk

Created by seven serial entrepreneurs who’ve done it before

“We’ve assembled a seven-person founding team of the most talented developers, designers, and community specialists in Denmark, who have cutting-edge expertise in building and operating digital marketplaces. That’s why we’re confident it will be a success with great potential even beyond our country’s borders.” – Christian Schwarz Lausten, co-founder

Behind Landfolk is a group of seasoned entrepreneurs who have managed to combine a personal mission with hard-nosed business. The seven founders got to know each other through Airbnb, to which four of them sold a company a couple of years ago. As a result, they have extensive experience and insight into how to build and scale a startup so that it fills a gap in the market.