Recession? Economic Crisis? Apparently some VC’s failed to get the memo with news breaking today that vacation rental site HomeAway has raised a stagerring $250 million.
Yes, $250 million. No, I’m not making this up. Technology Crossover Ventures, Institutional Venture Partners, and Redpoint Ventures led the round.
HomeAway connects vacation homeowners in the United States and Europe with travelers who want to rent their homes. It is the lead vacation rental site due ti its strategy of snapping up competitors. To date, the company has made 10 acquisitions, including VRBO and VacationRentals.com.
According to the NY Times , the site charges $300 a year for a homeowner to list a property and has 325,000 paid listings and visitors have used it to book between 225,000 and 300,000 vacations each month. The average homeowner earns $20,000 a year in rental income through the site.
$250 million.
It gets better: the previous two rounds were $49 million and $160 million, taking total funding to date o $459 million.
The company said it will use the new round to make further acquisitions and to increase its marketing drive.
