A Southampton student startup has created a platform to make it easier for people to borrow from, and lend or hire items to their neighbours.

 

Cade Abrahams, a second-year business student and “self-taught programmer” at the University of Southampton, said that ‘Neighbr’ aims to make the process of borrowing and lending to your neighbours as seamless as possible, “whether it's a monopoly set, a power tool or a sailing boat.”

The aim is “to get the world borrowing and lending their unused stuff to their neighbours”.

Cade, pictured above, said the platform, which is currently only available in Southampton but appears to have much wider ambitions, offers delivery, and “your stuff is protected”.

“We all have things in our home we could have borrowed from someone nearby. Perhaps it’s the power-tool that was used once, a monopoly set, or even a book.

“We don’t borrow because it’s not convenient. Neighbr aims to make the process of borrowing and lending to your neighbours as seamless as possible, through delivery, safety and carefully crafted user interfaces.”

Cade explained that you can lend items out for free, or charge a rental price. In the case of a rental, the platform takes 25% fees, and there’s a small fee for “transit”.

He said the main difference with existing local networks, like popular (but closed) ‘I Need a Whisk’ groups on Facebook which let you borrow things as well as exchange goods for free, is that “you don't have to negotiate delivery and collection times in a long chat”. ‘Loaned’ items can also be hired out.

Neighbr is available as an Apple or Android app, and beta website.