Kelvin Chikezie
Chief Beekeeper
Founder · Community builder · Traveller
Serial entrepreneur and global citizen, 42 countries visited and counting.
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Find your people.
Connect with them in real life.
Discover people, communities, experiences and places to stay based on what you have in common — wherever you are.
Helsinki
Remote
- Experience
Builder
Why we started
It started with people.
StayingBee was born from a simple observation: some of the most valuable things we've experienced while travelling, building companies and being part of communities weren't the places we visited.
They were the people we met.
- People who became friends.
- People who opened their homes.
- People who introduced us to their cities.
- People who became collaborators.
- People we met once — and somehow never forgot.
We started StayingBee because we wanted to make those kinds of connections easier to find.
The more people we met, the bigger the idea became.
How we evolved
We started with stays. We discovered something bigger.
The beginning
Community-powered stays
StayingBee started by helping people find places to stay with people connected through shared communities.
The first communities
AIESEC and beyond
We began building with communities where trust and shared identity already existed.
The learning
The people mattered most.
The stay was often the starting point. The connection was the real value.
Today
From places to people.
People · Communities · Hangouts · Experiences · Stays
What we're building
One platform. More ways to connect.
People
Find people who share your interests, values and energy.
Communities
Join communities where you already belong — or discover new ones.
Hangouts
Turn “Anyone around?” into “See you at 7.”
Experiences
Find things worth doing together.
Stays
Take your network with you when you travel.
At the centre is BeeAvatar — helping StayingBee understand who you are and surface people, communities and experiences that fit you.
Our principles
The StayingBee Way
How we think about building StayingBee, our product and our community.
01
Community first
We build for communities, with communities.
Every line of code, every decision we make is rooted in helping people belong — wherever they are in the world.
02
Human at the center
We design with empathy.
From our platform to our policies, we prioritize human connections, emotions, and needs above everything else.
03
Tech as an enabler
Technology should serve people, not the other way around.
We use tech to simplify, scale, and secure human connections — not to replace them.
04
People power everything
Our team, our hosts, our users — they are the heartbeat of StayingBee.
We grow together, support each other, and find solutions where everyone wins.
05
Trust through shared values and shared interest
We believe people connect deeply when they share values, culture, or stories.
That's why we match hosts and guests who understand each other — before they even meet.Today, BeeAvatar carries this idea further — compatibility between people, wherever they meet.
The humans behind the bees. 🐝
StayingBee is built by a small, ambitious and very human team spread across different places — connected by the belief that people should have better ways to find each other.
Miika Marttinen
Hive Builder
Technology · Product · Builder
Tech wizard with experience building games with 5 Million+ downloads.
The proof
A community is already forming.
What started as an idea around community-powered stays is now becoming a global network of people, communities and real-world connections.
17,000+
people
130+
countries
10+
communities
+ 600 listings to stay with your network
Different communities. One place to connect.
People rarely belong to just one community. They might be an AIESEC alumnus, a CEMSie, a Global Shaper, an entrepreneur, a traveller, a designer or simply someone who loves meeting interesting people.
StayingBee brings those different worlds together.
- AIESEC
- CEMS
- Global Shapers
- Erasmus
- JCI
- InterNations
- Rotary
- Enactus
- Startup Community
The support
We're not building this alone.
Building a global platform for human connection takes more than a product and a team. We're grateful to the people and organizations helping us turn the idea into reality.
Funded by
Business Finland
Finnish public funding for innovation
Angel Investors
Backed by angel investors who believe in the future of human connection.
Our Community
The people who use, host and champion StayingBee.
Supported by
Business Helsinki
Helsinki startup ecosystem
FreshMango Accelerator
Startup accelerator
Beta University Incubator
Startup incubator
Where we're building from
Born in Helsinki. Built everywhere.
StayingBee is headquartered in Helsinki, Finland. But our team isn't defined by one office.
We're a fully remote team working across locations and time zones, bringing different perspectives and experiences into the company every day.
If we're building a platform that helps people connect across borders, we should know what cross-border collaboration feels like ourselves.
Helsinki
HQ
US
Canada
Spain
Remote
🐝 Global community
What's next
We're just getting started.
Today, we're helping people discover communities, people, Hangouts, Experiences and Stays. We're still early. There's a lot more to build.
More people to connect.
More communities to bring together.
More cities to discover.
More real-life moments to create.
And we're excited about where this can go.
The hive is growing. 🐝
A community-driven accommodation and experience sharing platform that connects users based on shared interests, values, and community ties.
© 2025 StayingBee. All rights reserved.