More activity behind the scenes in vacation rental technology as Spain-based Kigo is snapped for $32 million by property management company RealPage.
Kigo's is a provider of scheduling software, channel and reservation management tools for owners as well as vacation rental website design for property management companies.
The deal includes an additional $5.5 million in deferred cash which will be paid over the course of the next 2.5 years.
RealPage is best known for its software for rental owners of family, military and seniors properties, but has this year made an effort to move into the burgeoning vacation rental sector.
In February this year RealPage acquired the assets of Bookt, the global provider of the InstaManager booking engine for vacation rental properties. RealPage CEO Steve Winn says:
"Both Kigo and InstaManager offer tremendous opportunity by helping professional vacation rental managers increase the number of properties managed and the days per year utilized, resulting in revenue growth without adding to their staff."
Coming as part of the acquisition will be 80 employees, with more than half in sales and marketing of the product - but RealPage says it also plans to expand its vacation rental resources even further.
Shawn Convery, president of Kigo who founded the company in 2008, says:
"Coupled with our agile sales process, which includes a team member focused on a specific step of the sales cycle, these strengths allow us to execute high-velocity selling to originate, qualify and convert leads.”
Kigo raised a $1.8 million Series A round in April 2013 from Creathor Venture, a German investment company which also counts the likes of Roombeats and Viewster on its portfolio.
RealPage, which currently has 9,200 clients around the world and runs operations from its Texas, US headquarters, says it plans to "significantly increase" its investment in its vacation rental business during the rest of 2014.
The company estimates there are approximately six million vacation rental "units" around the world (a third in North American and another third in Europe).
Its InstaManager system calculates that a vacation rental property is typically leased out up to 16 times per year.