Apartment List / Vertical Brands

Apartment List is the world’s largest and fastest-growing apartment search engine. It brings millions of listings from around the web into one elegant interface, drastically reducing the time it takes renters to find an apartment. Apartment List launched in September 2011 at TechCrunch Disrupt and won a 2012 Webby Award for Real Estate. 

Apartment List is owned by Vertical Brands and is built by a team that hails from Google, Yelp, Yahoo, Amazon, Facebook and Gilt Groupe. Vertical Brands is also working in automotive, careers and other consumer categories that are ripe for innovaiton. The San Francisco-based company is profitable and hiring. 

To find your next apartment, visiit www.apartmentlist.com.

John Kobs, CEO and Co-Founder 
John Kobs is one of Silicon Valley’s rising entrepreneurs. He is the CEO and co- founder of the Webby Award-winning #1 apartment search engine ApartmentList.com, which is owned by the San Francisco-based start up Vertical Brands. He is also the chairman of the board and co-founder of Chat Sports, Inc., a socially content platform for sports fans. Kobs is a recovering finance geek who previously focused on technology investing at TICC Capital. Prior to TICC, John was an investment banker at Thomas Weisel Partners. He is on the leadership council of the non-profit program Year Up, which aims to close the opportunity divide by giving low-income young adults top internships, job training and improved higher education. Kobs is also on the board of directors of the alumni association of his alma mater Case Western Reserve University where he graduated with a degree in Business Management and a concentration in Finance. He is a Cleveland native and a die-hard fan of his hometown teams. 

Chris Herndon, President and Co-Founder
Chris Herndon is the president and co-founder of the San Francisco-based start up Vertical Brands which fully owns and operates ApartmentList.com. A finance geek turned entrepreneur turned product guy, Herndon has spent the last three years building and leading Apartment List to achieve profitability, win a 2012 Webby award in real estate and the title of fastest-growing apartment search engine serving 500,000 renters each month. Today he is deeply ingrained in all aspects of the business including product vision, business development and sales. Along with his co-founder John Kobs, Herndon moved to Silicon Valley to solve big pain points for consumers, beginning with apartment search. Herndon spent five years prior to Apartment List as an investor with GTCR Golder Rauner and Goldman Sachs. He has also co-founded the 40 Acres Group, an Austin-based real estate investment firm and Philanthropedia, a site that helps donors make smarter giving decisions (acquired by GuideStar in 2011). He serves on the Bay Area Leadership Council of Year Up, an organization that provides professional training and job placement to urban youth. Chris has an MBA from Stanford University and B.A. in Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Chris Erickson, COO
Formerly of The Boston Consulting Group, Stanford MBA

Virginia Wang, VP of Product
Formerly of Gilt Groupe, PayPal and Google/YouTube

Matt Nemenman, VP of Engineering
Formerly of Yahoo and Inktomi

Apartment List is the world’s largest and fastest-growing apartment search engine. With millions of listings under one roof, it bring hundreds of listing services like Rent.com, Move.com, and others into one fast search experience, saving renters time and money in their search for housing, and delivering instant value to its partners by efficiently filling their vacant properties with qualified renteres.  

Apartment List’s elegant interface blends the best in search, social and mapping technologies with community scoop on neighborhoods (and one cute robot) to paint an eye-popping picture of each property. Today, more than 500,000 renters use Apartment List each month, and growing.

The company recently won the 2012 Webby Award (People’s Voice) in Real Estate.

Apartment List has the largest database of rental properties on the web, from the widest variety of listing sources. Apartment List's partnerships with hundreds of internet isting services are unmatched, giving the company a significant competitive advantage. 

Apartment List is profitable. The company raised less than one million dollars of seed funding from leading angel investors. Co-founders John Kobs and Chris Herndon came to Silicon Valley via the finance world, and believe that profits and amazing technology products should be pursued simultaneously.

The Apartment List business model can scale across industries and Vertical Brands will be pursuing other verticals, such as autos. Apartments are just the beginning.