In a city where it’s hard to escape the hub­bub of cof­fee shops and office pol­i­tics, a lit­tle peace and qui­et can be price­less. That’s the idea behind a new start up called Breather, which will short­ly begin offer­ing pri­vate rooms for rental across New York. Founder and CEO, Julian Smith, says Breather aims to offer, “peace and qui­et on demand,” and pro­vide mod­ern, styl­ish loca­tions for users to catch a nap, or get on with some work free from dis­trac­tions. The small rooms are also designed with the needs of an account man­ag­er, or small busi­ness own­er in mind, who may want to hold infor­mal meet­ings with clients away from the office.

An app for a dis­trac­tion-free nap

Breather revolves around an iOS or Android app, which allows users to instant­ly find pri­vate spaces close to them on the map, and eas­i­ly book some down­time. Con­tain­ing desks, couch­es and high-speed Wi-Fi con­nec­tions, the rooms are elec­tron­i­cal­ly unlocked through the press of a but­ton with­in the app, and users’ cred­it cards are auto­mat­i­cal­ly charged for the exact amount of time they spend in the rooms. Breather’s ded­i­cat­ed team main­tains the spaces, and the staff mem­bers rate how tidy users leave the rooms in order to remove trou­ble­mak­ers from the sys­tem. The app also allows Joe Pub­lic to rate how tidy the rooms they use are, and will auto­mat­i­cal­ly de-list any that fall below the stan­dards expected.

Sim­ple and scalable

One of the strongest aspects of the start-up is the growth poten­tial it has. Smith believes the com­pa­ny’s oper­a­tions are eas­i­ly scal­able to oth­er cities beyond the ini­tial tar­gets of New York, San Fran­cis­co and Mon­tre­al, and has grand plans for the ser­vice to even­tu­al­ly expand to “every major city”. Smith’s research has found that just 250 active users are required to sup­port each new loca­tion. The ser­vice is expect­ed to launch in New York in Jan­u­ary, fol­low­ing a fund­ing round that took place in June this year. Breather raised $1.5 mil­lion in seed fund­ing, with Real Ven­tures lead­ing the invest­ment, and Gary Vayn­er­chuk, and Loic Le Meur also contributing.