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The investor consortium, led by major European venture capital firm Balderton Capital also includes existing investor Index Ventures who reinvested pro-rata.  Tim Bunting of Balderton Capital will join Neil Rimer of Index Ventures and HouseTrip.com founders Arnaud Bertrand and Junjun Chen on the board. The funding will be used to develop three key growth areas for the company: Product (through increased functionality of the website), Inventory (through additional outreach to holiday apartment hosts) and Reach (through marketing and localisation).

 

Currently, consumers have their choice of booking impersonal and expensive hotels or by negotiating the difficult and potentially fraudulent world of private apartment rentals. HouseTrip.com allows guests to find and book villas and apartments for short-term stays in an easy-to-use, secure environment.

 

Hosts can list their properties free-of-charge with no hidden charges and HouseTrip offers them a number of easy-to-use online tools, taking the hassle out of managing the bookings and receiving payments.

 

HouseTrip founder and CEO Arnaud Bertrand says, “With this new investment, we now have the ability to get closer to our vision of making HouseTrip a powerful alternative to hotels around the world. At HouseTrip, we strongly believe that apartments are a much better way to travel. Not only do apartments provide better value for money, they also allow guests to become part of the local community for the duration of their stay.

 

“HouseTrip thinks that travellers genuinely prefer booking a fully-furbished apartment rather than a hotel when going on holiday – but are given too many stumbling blocks when planning their trips. Balderton and Index Ventures’ investment will allow HouseTrip to provide consumers with a product that will make apartment rentals easier, quicker and safer than ever before.”

 

Tim Bunting, a Balderton Capital partner adds: "Balderton chose to invest in HouseTrip.com because we felt HouseTrip offered the best model in a rapidly-growing field. HouseTrip has the vision and passion to win the race in this sector.  Balderton were particularly impressed by the strong team the company has established under the leadership of founder, Arnaud Bertrand."

 

HouseTrip.com went live in January 2010 and has generated bookings for over 500,000 nights so far, with 55,000 properties already listed in thousands of key global destinations. HouseTrip’s most popular host has already generated more than $1M in the first year he had his properties listed on the website.

 

Victoria Palmer-Moore / Carmen Murray

Powerscourt on behalf of Balderton Capital

E: vpm@powerscourt-group.com / carmen.murray@powerscourt-group.com 

T: 44 (0) 207 250 1446