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§ Private Profile · 1200 S Hope St, Los Angeles, CA 90015
Equipment and tool rental platform providing access to diverse gear for experiences for individuals in Los Angeles, focused on owning less.
Joymode has raised $20.4M across 3 funding rounds.
Key people at Joymode.
Joymode has raised $20.4M in total across 3 funding rounds.
Joymode is an equipment and tool rental platform based in Los Angeles, California, enabling users to access a wide variety of items for specific experiences without the burden of ownership. The company secured $3 million in funding, led by Homebrew, with participation from Lowercase Capital, Founders Collective, Collaborative Fund, and TenOneTen Ventures. As of 2016, Joymode reported 25% monthly growth in its Los Angeles operations, offering diverse rentals from outdoor recreation gear to consumer entertainment items. The platform's model focuses on providing access to equipment for activities like backyard movie nights or camping trips, rather than requiring purchase. Founded in April 2016 by Joe Fernandez, Waynn Lue, and Keith Walker. Its business model centers on joymode operates as a peer-to-peer or marketplace rental platform, generating revenue through rental fees charged to users accessing equipment. The company is venture-backed rather than relying on traditional revenue models.
Joymode is a Los Angeles-based consumer services startup founded in 2015 that offered a subscription-based rental platform for lifestyle items people need occasionally but don't want to own, such as camping gear, video game consoles, party supplies, and cleaning equipment.[1][2][3] Subscribers paid $22–$29 monthly to rent one weekly bundle, delivered and picked up by the company, targeting urban millennials, families, and those in small apartments facing high living costs, with over 100,000 registered users in LA by its later stages.[1][2] The service emphasized reducing ownership stress and promoting experiences over possessions, but Joymode was acquired by XRC Labs in a financial transaction on July 29, 2020, after raising $17.4M total, including a $14.4M Series A led by Naspers Ventures.[3][4][6]
Joymode was founded in 2015 by Joe Fernandez, former CEO of Klout (sold to Lithium Technologies), alongside co-founders Keith Walker and Waynn Lue, who brought data expertise from processing billions of data points daily at Klout.[1][3] The idea emerged from Fernandez's observation of urban living constraints—high housing costs, smaller spaces, and a cultural shift toward access over ownership—refined after Klout's sale while he sought a scalable model beyond New York or San Francisco, choosing LA as a testbed for its geographic and socioeconomic diversity.[2][3] Early traction came via a soft launch to a small subscriber list, quickly scaling to 5,000 products shipped weekly from a 5,000 sq ft warehouse, fueled by demand from families entertaining kids without clutter; pivotal funding included the $14.4M Series A in 2018, enabling warehouse expansion plans and features like bundle extensions and flexible pickups.[2][3][4]
Joymode rode the sharing economy and access-over-ownership wave, amplified by post-2010 trends like Airbnb/Uber and a backlash against consumerism amid urbanization and space constraints in cities like LA.[1][2][3] Timing was ideal in 2015, as millennials entered peak earning/spending years but prioritized experiences (e.g., weekends outdoors) over possessions, driven by economic pressures like soaring rents—evident in its 100,000+ LA users.[2] Market forces favoring it included investor bets on global scalability (Naspers saw "LA today, world tomorrow") and retail tech disruption, influencing the ecosystem by pioneering subscription hardware rentals for offline activities, prefiguring broader "rental revolutions" in consumer goods before its 2020 acquisition by XRC Labs integrated it into retail innovation acceleration.[3][4][6]
Post-2020 acquisition by XRC Labs, Joymode's standalone operations likely folded into the accelerator's portfolio, potentially enhancing retail tech rentals but ending as an independent entity—watch for revived branding or tech integration in XRC-backed ventures targeting consumer access models.[6] Rising sustainability demands and urban density will shape similar plays, with AI-optimized logistics (echoing JoyEngine) enabling national/global expansion; its influence may evolve through embedded tech in next-gen sharing platforms, proving subscriptions beat ownership for episodic needs and inspiring clutter-free lifestyles.[3][6] This ties back to Joymode's core hook: delivering joy without the stuff.
Joymode has raised $20.4M in total across 3 funding rounds.
Joymode's investors include Naspers, Homebrew, Emil Michael, Scott Belsky, Collaborative Fund, Founder Collective, Lowercase Capital, Sherpa Ventures, Slow Ventures, TenOneTen Ventures, 2048 Ventures, ACME Capital.
Joymode has raised $20.4M across 3 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $14.4M Series A in February 2018.
Key people at Joymode.
