HouseTrip, the holiday lettings marketplace, has raised $2.7m from Index Ventures. The deal was led by Index co-founder Neil Rimer who will also take a seat on HouseTrip’s board. This paves the way for a major relaunch of the site that has gone live today.
Established in late 2009, HouseTrip is another play in the holiday apartments space. It lets homeowners put up their holiday homes for rental but tries to differentiate itself by removing the need for guests to negotiate directly, thus building in a degree of security – no more international money transfer – and removing the administrative hassle for both parties.
In addition, the site doesn’t charge an up front fee for listing a property. Instead, HouseTrip takes a commission at the point of rental, while the guest’s payment is not released to the owner until two days after the beginning of the rental period giving the holiday maker greater peace of mind.
And, according to HouseTrip, the formula is resonating with customers. Last year saw 8,000 properties listed on the site in total with over 50,000 nights booked. In 2011, the company is expecting another 22,000 properties to be added to the site.
