Nasdaq-listed vacation rental site HomeAway has acquired a Singapore-based startup Travelmob, allowing it to compete directly with Airbnb in the Asia-Pacific region.
HomeAway announced today that it acquired a majority stake of 63 percent in Travelmob in an undisclosed, all-cash deal. For now, Travelmob’s team of 16 will continue to operate as an independent brand out of Singapore.
HomeAway will also pump in $2 million in its new Travelmob arm to help grow its presence in the Asia-Pacific.
This isn’t the first time the two are working together. HomeAway and Travelmob partnered in March to cross-list Travelmob’s 14,000 rentals in Asia on HomeAway’s site. That deal must have gone well enough for HomeAway to want to cement that relationship. HomeAway itself has 740,000 listings across 171 countries.
Travelmob’s listings cross over into the Airbnb-style rentals. In February this year, it started allowing home owners a way to advertise last-minute discounts on their properties, and has been featuring its slightly off-the-beaten-path listings such as a houseboat in Kerala or an island in the Philippines.
Airbnb, too, has been pushing into the region. Last year, it expanded operations in Sydney, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia.
Travelmob’s acquisition comes shortly after the firm raised $1 million in seed funding from Singapore VC, Jungle Ventures. One of the startup’s co-founders, Turochas Fuad, was previously managing director for Skype Asia, and the head of Yahoo’s Southeast Asian mobile business prior to that.
HomeAway filed for IPO in 2011, which raised $216 million for the company in the offering. It’s also raised close to half a billion dollars in venture funding in 2008, and was valued at about $1.4 billion in 2010.
