Travel search engine Kayak has is announcing a new board member today—HomeAway Founder and CEO Brian Sharples. He joins fellow Kayak board members Michael Moritz, Joel Cutler, Terrell Jones, Hendrik Nelis, and Gregory Stanger
Sharples co-founded vacation rentals giant HomeAway in February 2005 and helped lead the company to a public offering in June 2011. Prior to HomeAway, he was president… → Read More
Vacation homes sit empty most of the year, representing a huge amount of untapped inventory waiting to be discovered online. Large services such as HomeAway, VRBO, and TripAdvisor’s FlipKey are taking advantage of this market opportunity, but for many vacation homeowners managing their listings online is still too much of a hassle. They end up handing over the keys to local rental property… → Read More
Newly public home rental service HomeAway is reporting third quarter earnings today, posting a 37 percent increase in revenue to $61.1 millon from $44.6 million in the third quarter of 2010. The company said revenue increase was attributed to a strength in renewal rates and increased revenue per listing from the prior year.
Unfortunately, the company posted a loss this quarter of $4.1 million… → Read More
Newly public home rental service HomeAway is reporting second quarter earnings today, posting a 40.9 percent revenue growth, to $58.7 million in the second quarter, compared to $41.6 million in the second quarter of 2010. The company said growth was buoyed by renewal rates, coupled with increases in new listings and revenue per listing.
Net income for the quarter was $2.2 million compared to… → Read More
One of my favorite recent blog posts is Seth Godin’s “Getting funded is not the same as succeeding.” Whether or not we’re in a bubble, it’s a sign of the times that this post has to be written in the first place. As Josh Elman tweets, we’ve gone from RIP Good Times to funding a grilled cheese company in less than three years (Sequoia was involved in both interestingly). Instead… → Read More
Bubble or not, 2011 may go down as the year of the tech IPO. Not since the last bubble have we seen so many technology companies clamoring to go public. And halfway through the year, we still have many more companies who will be listing on either the NASDAQ or the NYSE in the next six months. Here’s a roundup of the tech companies that have gone public, where they are trading now, and who we can… → Read More
Vacation home rental service HomeAway has begun trading on the NASDAQ this morning under the symbol ‘AWAY’, with the shares trading as high as $37.10. giving the company a market cap of $3 billion. That’s an increase of 39 percent, up from the company’s initial pricing of $27 per share last night.
HomeAway, which filed for an IPO in March, raised $216 million in the offering. → Read More
Vacation home rental service HomeAway has priced its IPO, which is set to begin trading tomorrow morning at $27 per share, giving the company a valuation of $2 billion. The company aims to raise as much as $248 million in the offering.
Last week, HomeAway priced the range of its offering between $24 and $27 per share, so this final pricing is at the high end of the range. The company’s shares… → Read More
This is no doubt that this is the year of technology IPOs. Vacation home rental service HomeAway has set the price range of its offering, pricing the range between $24 and $27 per share, valuing the company at a whopping $2 billion. HomeAway aims to raise as much as $248 million in the offering and will list its stock on the NASDAQ under the symbol “AWAY.”
HomeAway, which filed for an IPO in… → Read More
Vacation rentals giant HomeAway has made an acquisition today—social vacation rentals platform Second Porch. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Second Porch, which launched in 2009, helps you find and share vacation rentals through your social circle on Facebook. The site’s Facebook app allows owners create a free property listing that can be broadcast to your Facebook friends. The app also… → Read More
As it prepares for a public offering, vacation rental giant HomeAway is continuing its aggressive acquisition strategy with the purchase of realholidays.com.au, the Australian vacation rental brand of REA Group Limited. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The acquisition broadens HomeAway’s presence in the Australian market, and into the Asia-Pacific region.Currently HomeAway has presences in… → Read More
Vacation home rental service HomeAway has just submitted its S-1 filing with the SEC, indicating that it will file for a public offering in the next few months. The maximum proposed total offering price is $230 million but this could be just a placeholder amount.
HomeAway has raised close to a half a billion dollars in venture funding, and in its most recent investment round was valued at $1.4… → Read More
Google Ventures has invested in Austin, Texas based HomeAway, a vacation home rental service, at a $1.4 billion valuation, we’ve heard from a source. The New York Times first broke the story, but doesn’t have details on valuation or amount invested.
Our source says Google Ventures invested somewhere around $25 million in the company.
Google Ventures bought stock directly from existing… → Read More
Online vacation rental marketplace operator HomeAway this morning announced that it has agreed to acquire Instant Software, makers of vacation rental management software. With the purchase, HomeAway is able to expand its suite of product offerings for professional vacation rental managers.
Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but it’s likely material for HomeAway as it will add another 50… → Read More
HomeAway, the Austin based provider of short-term rental property listings, services for vacation rentals by owner, and search and review tools for travelers debuted its first mobile app today.
An iPhone app, it was developed by Mobiata, the Ann Arbor based creators of FlightTrack and TripDeck (popular travel apps for iPhone, also available on iPad, RIM, Android and Palm devices).
HomeAway chief… → Read More
HomeAway, the massive vacation home rental service rollup, is ramping towards an IPO, likely in 2011, say sources close to the company. And that shouldn’t be any surprise, given the two key executive hires the company announced today – new chief product officer Tom Hale (previously CPO at Linden Labs) and chief operating officer Brent Bellm (previously PayPal, and in need of a vowel for his last… → Read More
Travel website operator TripAdvisor, an Expedia company, this morning announced it has acquired Holiday Lettings, credited as being the UK’s largest independent vacation rental website.
The seller is Rightmove, a UK-based property website operator, having sold its majority interest in the holding company of Holiday Lettings to TripAdvisor for an undisclosed sum. Rightmove acquired a 66.67% stake… → Read More
Online vacation rental giant HomeAway this morning announced that it is expanding its global footprint and moving into South America with the acquisition of the publisher of AlugueTemporada.com.br, Brazil’s leading vacation rental site. The terms of the deal remain undisclosed.
With its acquisition of what HomeAway claims is the largest vacation rental website in South America with over 12,000… → Read More
Vacation home rental site HomeAway is acquiring BedandBreakfast.com, a site for finding bed-and-breakfast properties all over the world.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but BedAndBreakfast.com will continue to operate as a separate site from HomeAway. → Read More
Just because your bank account might be light is no reason to cancel your vacation this year. There are alternatives to expensive hotels. Expensive summer home rentals. Actually, renting someone’s vacation home for two to three weeks is usually cheaper than a fancy hotel and you get a lot more room to spread out. But finding a vacation home to rent out can be a real chore. Sites like … → Read More
AirBed and Breakfast, an online portal for renting space on a stranger’s airbed or couch, has re-launched its website to AirBnB, an eBay-like marketplace for all accommodations. Now a Y-Combinator start-up (the startup is currently in the winter session of the incubator), AirBnB, which launched as AirBed and Breakfast last August, found that users wanted to use the site for more than just renting… → Read More
Vacation rentals are big business. HomeAway, which owns a dozen or so vacation home listing sites, just raised $250 million in a venture round that values the company at more than $1 billion.
But listings are spread across lots of sites – what the industry needed was a good central search engine for all those vacation home rentals. It’s also a pain to do lots of searches on different sites… → Read More
Austin, Texas based HomeAway, a vacation home rental service, has raised a $250 million round of financing. This comes on top of $209 million previously raised over two rounds.
The new financing was led by Technology Crossover Ventures, with existing investors IVP and Redpoint Ventures participating as well. The financing is the largest minority investment of a U.S. Internet company in the last… → Read More
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