NearMe Launches To Enable Businesses in The Sharing Economy

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 13, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, NearMe (www.near-me-app.com), a customizable marketplace solution empowering the sharing economy, launched in private beta. The site provides individual and commercial brands with a simple, easy tool for creating peer-to-peer marketplaces. The company aims to empower users to augment the sharing ecosystem by creating and managing their own sites that allow users to share, trade, swap or rent anything. NearMe launched its flagship product in 2012, DesksNear.Me, an online marketplace connecting professionals with unused desk space, which now leads the space with over 9,000 listings at over 1,400 companies worldwide, including office buildings, medical suites, retail spaces and more.

"We're thrilled with the incredible growth we've seen with DesksNearMe over the past year, and it proves the viability of the sharing economy business model," said Michelle Regner, CEO and co-founder of NearMe. "DesksNearMe has changed the way people conduct business, and with Near-Me-App.com, we're confident we are giving both entrepreneurs and brands the opportunity and tools to build more businesses in the sharing economy. Our mission is to bring about a change in everyone's quality of life, reduce consumption and consumerism, help people save money and become better global citizens."

The NearMe platform offers the following features:

• Customizable branding, pages, settings and domain names
• Hassle-free payment solutions to set fees and instantly accept payments from users
• Dashboards to identify top performing content, analyze traffic and user behavior
• Personalized customer support through NearMe's support team
• Mobile application development tool kit
• No development or coding skills necessary so anyone can build
• Search engine optimization

While NearMe is still in private beta, several companies are already using the site to create businesses in the sharing ecosystem. The W Hotels has leveraged the NearMe platform to offer chic, collaborative workspace options at Manhattan's W New York Downtown. Also, built on NearMe and launching soon is a rental service for road-warriors and vacation planners.

Entrepreneurs with an idea and little to no development experience can use NearMe's platform to easily build their own marketplace. Large commercial brands that are not typically a part of the sharing economy are leveraging NearMe to enter a new wave of innovation and align with the purchasing habits of their users.

On-stage at LeWeb in Paris, Jeremiah Owyang, Industry Analyst and Partner at Altimeter Group and Founder of the recently launched Crowd Companies Innovation Network, discussed the future of the sharing economy as it relates to brands to an audience of about 3,000 people. The mission of Crowd Companies Innovation Network is for collaboration between empowered people and resilient brands to achieve shared value. The council will focus on answering how big corporations can be part of the sharing economy, maker movement and new forms of co-innovation. DesksNearMe is one of 22 startups in the Innovation Network, and the Brand Council includes over twenty large public companies.

"With the Crowd Companies Innovation Network, I'm hand-selecting startups that can help enterprise class corporations with sharing economy solutions," said Owyang. "DesksNearMe has demonstrated early market vision with their NearMe platform."

For more information or to enter the NearMe private beta program, please visit www.near-me-app.com. To list your unused desk space or to rent a desk anywhere in the world, please visit www.desksnear.me

About NearMe
NearMe is a customizable marketplace solution empowering the sharing economy. The site provides individuals, brands and entrepreneurs with a simple, easy platform for creating peer-to-peer marketplaces. The company empowers users to augment the sharing ecosystem by creating and managing their own sites that allow users to share, trade, swap or rent anything. The company is headquartered in San Francisco and is available for users worldwide.

CONTACT: Jacqueline Tanzella, 415-741-7848, [email protected]

SOURCE NearMe