NYU Innovation Venture Fund has put its weight behind KitSplit, an online marketplace to rent equipment such as cameras, drones and virtual reality headsets.

KitSplit, a US-based online rental marketplace for creative equipment, raised $2.1m yesterday in a seed round featuring NYU Innovation Venture Fund, the VC fund of New York University.

HearstLab, an incubator set up by mass media group Hearst to support early-stage, women-led startups, also contributed to the round, as did Entrepreneurs Roundtable, 3311 Ventures, WIT and Mike Krieger, co-founder of social media platform Instagram.

KitSplit operates a marketplace that enables individuals to rent equipment for creative projects, such as cameras, lenses, drones, virtual reality gear or lights, from other users and rental companies.

The company also offers insurance for the equipment, operates a concierge service to transport equipment between users and organises monthly community events.

KitSplit, which is currently focused on New York and Los Angeles (LA), will use the seed funding to expand and hire additional staff in LA.

The company previously obtained an undisclosed amount in pre-seed funding from HearstLab, as well as Broadway Video Ventures, the investment arm of multimedia entertainment company Broadway Video, and assorted angel investors in 2016.