A month on from an Instagram post that sparked a firestorm, Kiki founder Toby Thomas-Smith has finally issued a mea culpa.
In a January 17 Instagram post, Thomas-Smith said his start-up - founded in Auckland by himself and four other men - was going to pivot from its subleasing business(bankrolled with around $10 million from Australasian venture capital firm Blackbird) to form a “girl’s club” for women in New York. The move had been inspired by a new female employee, Caitlin Emiko, who was also new to the city.
As reaction mounted - much of it calling his post sexist or clueless, with some reaction coming from female founders who had already pursued the same idea - the young entrepreneur went to ground for four weeks.
Overnight, he broke his silence in a new Instagram post, saying, “I’ve been really sick for the past few weeks. Today is my second day back talking ... I want to apologise to all of you who found our previous update offensive and disrespectful. I was extremely naive in referring to Kiki as the first girl’s club in NYC. It was incredibly offensive to all of the women founders who’ve been working and researching to improve safe environments for women to live in.”
This time, a lot of the reaction was positive. “It takes courage to admit when we get things wrong and to be willing to take accountability. It’s not easy, but it’s definitely a sign of a good founder,” said Girls That Invest author Simran Kaur in comments.
But Georgia King of The Women’s Collective said, “I feel like there’s still the issue that men are trying to come in and fix something that women are struggling with.”
But some still said Thomas-Smith had been given more leeway for his various antics - he has a history of publicity stunts - because of his sex. “You dropped your pants on national television as a publicity stunt - behaviour that a woman founder would NEVER get away with,” Jennifer Busing commented.
Meanwhile, whatever they thought of his sexual politics, others were confused about where exactly Kiki now stood with its business model. Was the “girl’s club” still a thing, however it was now being framed? (Kiki launched into New York last year with a social media-heavy subleasing model. Thomas-Smith called it “Airbnb meets Hinge”. It has earlier run similar operations in Sydney and NZ.)
“I’m totally lost … so are you still renting?” said one Instagram commenter, Kelly Brandon.
A Blackbird today told the Herald, “Subletting remains part of Kiki’s strategy long-term. It’s not ‘pivoting’. Building the club is a project to build community for the subletting business.”
Blackbird partner also breaks silence
Blackbird has also been silent over the controversy, bar a brief statement issued via a PR firm saying, “Both Blackbird and the Kiki team recognise that Kiki’s recent social media post announcing its intention to build Girls Club NYC has regrettably caused frustration and in some cases, offence. The team understands the reaction this has caused and has taken on board all feedback.”
In a blog post on Wednesday, Samantha Wong - a Blackbird general partner and the head of its New Zealand business, said, “As a former female founder who struggled to raise venture funding for her startup, and as a female general partner who has raised $160m over two separate funds for the New Zealand Blackbird funds that I run, I am empathetic to the challenge of fundraising as a woman. I can fully appreciate the frustration at inequity in funding for female founders that I saw in commentary on this story.”
Blackbird Ventures general partner Samantha Wong, who heads the firm's NZ office.
“Since Blackbird started deploying our 2022 core fund, we have invested in 22 companies, and 23 per cent of these have at least one woman founder. While this is broadly in line with industry standards, it’s nowhere near where we want it to be.” Blackbird had various initiatives under way to invest in women and non-binary founders.
“Despite what you may have read, Blackbird did not back a women’s club,” Wong said. “Nor did it ‘fail’ in Sydney’.” (Thomas-Smith earlier said Kiki closed its NZ business to focus on Sydney, then shuttered its Sydney operation to focus on New York.)
“Kiki has only been operational in New York for three months,” Wong wrote. “With 1200 listings, it has exceeded expectations. However, there was an imbalance of supply and demand (not uncommon in the early days of a marketplace), and it does not yet have the community magic that it was known for in Sydney, where women made up 70 per cent of Kiki’s users.”
The club was a bid to capture that community connection.
Thomas-Smith did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Wong sent brief remarks through a PR, reiterating her blog post.
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.
