Apartment hunting stinks. But it really doesn’t have to.

That’s the belief that spurred Alec Slocum, Chad Aldous, and Adam Olien to launch a website in 2012 that they envisioned could become a comprehensive, spam-free and accurate resource for Madison renters. Then called MoveInMadison.com, the venture started as a “portfolio project” for the three recent college graduates, a side hustle they worked on during nights and weekends.

Five years later, Abodo has evolved into a venture-backed tech startup and a heavily trafficked search engine by college students and young professionals across the country looking for a new home.

Abodo now has users in 260 cities across the country in markets from Berkeley, California to Ithaca, New York. In Madison, the company estimates that more than 75 percent of the city’s 125,000 renters used Abodo in 2016. Read the full story here.