Edited Press Release
Operator
Rocky Mountain Vacation Rentals announced today their decision to seek additional funding to further accelerate the company’s growth.
Rocky Mountain Vacation Rentals, based in Vail, experienced unprecedented growth within the travel industry despite today’s economic situation. “We are in discussion with numerous groups about expansion into new vacation and travel markets,” commented owner and founder, Tommy Z. Hoffman. (more…)
Edited Press Release
Today Second Porch, the vacation rental Facebook app, announced that it has closed a one million dollar Series-A investment, led by the Oregon Angel Fund. The investment will be used to continue the company’s expansion into the vacation home rental and home exchange markets, which are among the fastest growing segments in online consumer travel.
Second Porch seeks to harness two strong trends: the mainstreaming of social networking, and vacation home rentals, one of the fastest growing segments of online travel. Second Porch enables owners and renters to tap into real world relationships in order to rent and trade vacation homes, where trust between owner and guest is of paramount concern on both sides of the transaction.
Second Porch Facebook App
Second Porch offers vacation homeowners an easy way to generate and manage high-value rental inquiries. According to the 2009 research report “Vacation Rental Marketplace: Poised for Change” published by travel research firm PhoCusWright Inc., homeowners who rent their own vacation homes reported that 73% of their inquiries come from friends, family, referrals and previous guests.
“Second Porch tackles the unsolved piece of the marketing opportunity for vacation homeowners by bringing an easy to use system to effectively and tastefully market to the best possible source of guests: people you already know and with whom you have some degree of trust”, said Brent Hieggelke, CEO of Second Porch, “The typical Facebook personal network comprised of ‘friends of friends’ reaches almost 17,000 people, all of whom can be vouched for by a friend in common. For a homeowner, this is an obvious opportunity to find prospective guests to rent to with a higher level of comfort and peace of mind. Second Porch also complements sites like HomeAway and VRBO, by giving homeowners the controls to integrate their existing calendars and even link back to their listings on those sites.”
Second Porch comes at an ideal time for the second home market. Due to the recession, many of the estimated 16 million second home owners globally who previously avoided renting or trading are now being forced into the market for an additional source of income. Second Porch provides a perfect entry point for travelers and owners who have hesitated to rent vacation homes due to trust concerns: renters can choose to view only homes owned by friends, and owners can choose to limit visibility to only friends only.
Company News
PackLate.com, a startup that aims to facilitate the booking of affordable vacation rentals online at the last minute, recently raised $685,000 in seed funding from Philadelphia-based Genacast Ventures, First Round Capital, ETF Venture Funds and angel investors.
packlate.com logo
Read more about it on Techcrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/12/packlate-funding/
Edited Press Release
Escapia, a provider of web-based management and marketing solutions for vacation rental managers, announced on June 22 the completion of a $1.6 million round of funding. The new funding allows the company to extend its position in web hosted software for vacation rental managers and to capitalize on the breakneck growth in its consumer bookings business. The round, which exceeded the company’s goals for the amount of new capital raised, is being led by existing investors including Steven D. Murch, Buerk Dale Victor, and Atlas Accelerator.
Escapia’s web-based vacation rental software platform simplifies how professional vacation rental managers market and manage their vacation homes. Escapia streamlines reservations, accounting and property management, enables online reservations, provides fully integrated distribution reaching tens of millions of online travelers each month, delivers agencies world-class website solutions, enhances security and provides unparalleled flexibility in running vacation rental businesses. Today Escapia powers the back office and websites for hundreds of vacation rental agencies, providing them with online availability, booking and direct integration with their reservation desks. The Escapia web-hosted software platform has powered over half a billion dollars worth of vacation rental bookings.
The new funding allows the company to build on an impressive track record of growth. Over the past year Escapia has expanded its consumer business, added to its client base, and expanded its suite of services. Consumer bookings driven by the Escapia platform to vacation rental managers has increased by over 400% compared to a year ago. The number of vacation rental agencies using the leading Escapia web-hosted vacation rental software platform has increased by 25%, even in the midst of a sharp recession. And the company has released innovative technology including the first integrated yield management system available to vacation rental managers.
The company’s CEO Bill Furlong said, “We’re thrilled to have closed additional funding to accelerate development of our software platform and expand the breadth and sophistication of our online distribution. Our investors see the opportunity to dramatically improve the ability of vacation rental managers to serve travelers looking online for vacation homes. We’re focused on expanding what is already the most advanced property management and online distribution capability available to vacation rental managers.”
HomeAway receives $8.2m funding
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010The Austin Business Journal reports that vacation rental web site operator HomeAway Inc. closed a $8.2 million round of financing that’s related to one of its recent acquisitions.
According to a March 12 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission HomeAway received the funding from two investors.
To read the full article click here: http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2010/03/15/daily8.html
Tags: fund raising, homeaway
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