Sheltr
Acquired1 known investors
Sheltr was a San Francisco home maintenance platform offering twice-yearly home checkups, acquired by Hippo Insurance in 2019.
Investors · 1
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Sheltr was a tech-enabled home maintenance and home services company based in San Francisco. Its core offering allowed members to schedule and pay for twice-annual home checkups carried out by trained home professionals, a model the company compared to a physical for a house or a regular vehicle oil change. Each visit combined routine preventative maintenance tasks — such as replacing furnace and HVAC filters, changing smoke and carbon monoxide detector batteries, and cleaning dryer vents — with an assessment intended to catch issues such as leaking pipes before they turned into costly repairs.
Alongside the physical service, Sheltr built software for tech-driven home assessments that catalogued appliances, monitored the condition of a home's exterior, and generated proactive recommendations for further home services. After each checkup, customers received a home wellness summary detailing the work performed and the option to book recommended or optional additional services. The company operated in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Dallas, Texas metro area, with plans to expand within those markets and into additional states in 2020.
Sheltr was acquired by insurtech Hippo Insurance in a cash and stock transaction announced in November 2019; the price was not disclosed. Its eight employees joined Hippo, which had more than 200 staff at the time, and co-founder Andrew Wynn took the role of director of home services at Hippo. Hippo positioned the deal as a way to make homeowners insurance proactive rather than reactive and began rolling Sheltr checkups out to select customers in the Bay Area and Dallas.
Founding story
Sheltr was founded in 2018 by Andrew Wynn and Praveen Chekuri. Wynn, previously an early employee at Instacart, has described the idea as originating from his own experience after moving to Silicon Valley, where he found fixing problems around his condo costly and painful and concluded that prevention was preferable to repair.
Business model
Sheltr sold a membership-style home maintenance service under which customers scheduled and paid for two home checkups per year performed by trained home professionals, with the option to book additional recommended services identified during each visit.
Members scheduled and paid for twice-annual home checkups, with follow-on revenue available from recommended or optional home services booked after each visit.
Traction
By the November 2019 acquisition Sheltr had eight employees, operations in two metropolitan markets, and had raised $3.2 million in seed financing. Hippo reported that a pilot run earlier in 2019 mitigated claims-related issues in more than half of the participating homes.
Latest developments
Following the acquisition, Hippo began rolling Sheltr's protective home maintenance checkups out to select customers in the San Francisco Bay Area and Dallas, with expansion to new neighbourhoods planned for 2020, and brought the maintenance capability in-house. Andrew Wynn moved into the role of director of home services at Hippo.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
Sheltr operated in preventative home maintenance adjacent to home insurance. Hippo characterised the company as having built technology and operational capability quickly and cited a pilot in which more than half of participating homes saw claims-related issues mitigated; Hippo also referenced a J.D. Power finding that 34% of consumers would switch to a carrier offering preventative loss and protection services.
The service was positioned around prevention rather than repair, bundling scheduled maintenance tasks with condition assessments and proactive recommendations so that problems could be identified before generating insurance claims or costly repairs.
Technology
Sheltr described itself as a home maintenance software company, pairing in-home service visits with tech-driven home assessments that catalogue appliances, monitor a home's exterior condition, produce proactive service recommendations, and deliver a post-visit home wellness summary to the customer.
Go-to-market
Sheltr combined direct-to-consumer sales with business partnerships, working with homeowners, brokerages, insurers and other insurtechs, including Hippo, from its founding. Post-acquisition, its checkups were distributed to selected Hippo insurance customers.
Homeowners in the markets Sheltr served, reached both directly and through business partners including insurers, brokerages and other insurtech companies.
Geography
Headquartered in San Francisco, with operations in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Dallas, Texas metro area at the time of acquisition, and stated plans to expand in those markets and into additional states in 2020.
History
Founded in 2018, Sheltr launched its home checkup service and raised its first seed financing of $3.2 million in May 2019. It operated in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Dallas metro area. Hippo Insurance acquired the company in a cash and stock deal reported in November 2019, publishing its own announcement in January 2020; Hippo described the transaction as its most important partnership and acquisition to date. Sheltr had worked with Hippo, as well as homeowners, brokerages and other insurtechs, since its founding, and Wynn characterised the exit as atypically early in a startup's life cycle.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Timeline · 3
launches, deals, and filingsHippo Insurance, a digital home insurance managing general agency, acquired Sheltr, a San Francisco-based tech-enabled home wellness checkup startup, in a cash and stock transaction; the price was not disclosed. Sheltr's eight employees joined Hippo's 200-plus staff, and co-founder Andrew Wynn became Hippo's director of home services. Hippo published its own announcement of the acquisition on 2020-01-15, calling it its most important partnership and acquisition to date.
Sheltr raised its first seed financing round of $3.2 million.
$3.2M source ↗
Sheltr was founded in 2018 by Andrew Wynn and Praveen Chekuri and launched its twice-annual home checkup service.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
▸Research sources · 8
primary sources listed
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Sheltr do?
- Sheltr was a San Francisco home maintenance platform offering twice-yearly home checkups, acquired by Hippo Insurance in 2019.
- Who are Sheltr's investors?
- Sheltr's investors include Script Capital.