Europe's three largest venture capital firms have come together to back HouseTrip, which raised $40 million in its third round of funding, as announced yesterday.
HouseTrip allows travellers to make money by renting out their homes while they're away. Just include a profile, the price and some reviews and travellers interested in saving money and enjoying a "local" experience can make arrangements to make your home their home, until you return.
That is, if you live in Europe, since the London-based HouseTrip lists only European properties.
"We are a European-centric business," CEO Arnaud Bertrand told Venture Beat in an article published yesterday. "Europe is the largest market globally for vacation rentals, and 60 percent of Europeans travel within Europe. "
HouseTrip offers 130,000 properties in 15,000 destinations and projects it will have booked more than three million nights of accommodations by the end of the year. It targets properties that are consistently available for rent.
HouseTrip was founded in 2009 by Arnaud Bertrand and Junjun Chen, and its website launched in 2010. The two met while studying hospitality management at the Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne in Switzerland, and were inspired to create HouseTrip after a particularly complicated booking process for a weekend rental in Scotland, according to the company's website.
The third round of funding was led by Accel Partners, which was joined by previous investors, Balderton Capital and Index Ventures. This brings the company's total funding to almost $60 million.
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