Travelio, an Indonesian name-your-own-price accommodation start-up, has picked up $2 million pre-Series A funding, led by Gobi Partners.
The business, which launched earlier this year, brings the Priceline-esque negotiated rate concept to short-term home rentals, but also has hotel partners on its platform.
Travelio currently has 12,000 properties across APAC on its books, ranging from chain hotels to private apartments via hostels and house-share. While the business inevitably is referred to as the "Airbnb of Indonesia" execs and investors are keen to point out that it deals with managing agents for home rentals and its business model is closer to China's Tujia.com.
And of course Airbnb doesn't allow guests to negotiate on price (although it does sell some hotel rooms).
Gobi's press release explained how it works:
"Through the Travelio website and mobile app, users can discover and book accommodations based on their individual housing and budget requirements, allowing them to either "book now" at a set competitive rate or pick their own price. Property owners are then able to decide whether or not to accept the negotiated deal based on price, occupancy and availability either automatically through pre-set price ranges or manually."
Travelio began life as a unit of Indonesian property and construction giant SSI before looking for external investment.
In addition to Gobi, other participants in the pre-Series A round include SSI, Anthill Ventures and Chinese-based angel investors Zhenzhen Sun of Proxima Ventures and Tian Gu, CEO of Travel+Leisure magazine's Chinese edition.
The cash will be used to build Travelio's presence in Indonesia, enhance the product and recruit more staff.
Kay-Mok Ku from Gobi said: "We believe that its business model captures the confluence of two disruptive trends, gamification when engaging consumers and the supply-side sharing economy."
Gobi is based in Shanghai and is an early-stage investor, mainly across APAC. Its travel plays include Vietnamese tours site Triip.me and Indonesian package tours business Tripvisto. It was an early investor in Nasdaq-listed Chinese outbound specialist Tuniu.com.
It was also involved in a $5 million Series A round for WayBlazer, an artificial intelligence engine built for travel.
Related reading from Tnooz:
Online travel in Southeast Asia primed for long-term growth (May 2016)
Tours site Triip.me picks up $500,000 seed round from Gobi (Feb 2016)
WayBlazer, the travel cognitive computing startup, lands $5M (May 2015)