Entrepreneurial Alumni

James Jenkins-Yates & Tom Jones

Posted 01 August 2017

New York Program

March 2012 Intake

Class of March 2012 Duo Build World-leading Startup

Like many Mountbattens James Jenkins-Yates (left photo), a graduate of Lancaster University, was regular user of Airbnb during his time in the States. This planted a seed, which has since grown into a multimillion pound business, airsorted.uk co-founded by fellow Mountbatten Tom Jones (right in photo), a graduate of Birmingham University. Airsorted Ltd is an Airbnb management company that takes care of keys, cleaning, laundry and everything else that's essential for a successful stay.

James, who had learned how to be an analyst during his time interning at Deutsche Bank, continued in finance when he moved to London from New York. After a year or so, he decided to leave the corporate environment and began Airbnb'ing his place so that he could fund a 3 month coding course that he was attending in London. He quickly realised three things:
there is a lot of money to be made from Airbnb'ing your place; there is a lot of work involved; no one is currently connecting the vital services required. He formed airsorted.uk - an Airbnb management company.

Tom, who was placed at Citi Private Bank during his time at Mountbatten, had since moved in to SaaS sales for a market leading Norwegian tech company. He was loving life at Meltwater, but when he heard the concept for Airsorted over a catchup beer with James, Tom decided to take the plunge from security to startup.

James, had also managed to pull in a third co-founder from a large competitor and got the company on to a PropTech incubator, which was a vital step in the journey.

Since being founded in February 2015, Airsorted Ltd has grown to a team of 60 employees across four offices (London, Edinburgh, Dublin and Sydney). With very little in initial investment, the company has grown to 1500 homes and more recently received £1.5 million in funding from venture capitalists including the World’s largest investor.

The ability to attract both talent and investment is essential for any startup. This is heavily dependent on the existing team and their C.Vs. Having large banks and the Mountbatten brand behind them not only helped James and Tom to get strong roles when they returned to the UK, but it has proved invaluable in attracting investment.

Airsorted plans to expand further globally in 2019.