China-based vacation rental service startup Tujia secured its Series B funding from GGV Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, CDH Ventures, Qiming Venture Partners, Ctrip and HomeAway.
The funding amount of current and its previous (series A) investment now stands at $63.7 million (RMB400 million).
Tujia launched its service in December 2011 and secured Series A funding in May 2012 from Lightspeed China Partners, CDH Investments, Ctrip and HomeAway.
An interesting observation in this update is the expansion of US-based HomeAway into Asian market.
HomeAway took a minority stake in Tujia in May 2012 and established a partnership relation in December 2012. Also, in November 2012, HomeAway partnered with Singapore's metasearch platform Wego.
The $26 billion global vacation rental market is still an upcoming market in Asia and it is slowing catching up with the global trend.
Other peer to peer vacation rental service providers in Asia include: Singapore-based Travelmob that launched in July 2012 and secured $1 million funding, Hong Kong-based TheVillaGuide, Berlin-based 9flats, Europe-based Wimdu, US players Airbnb and TripAdvisor-owned Flipkey.
According to E27.co, in 2012,
- Airbnb has expanded significantly in Southeast Asia in 2012. The total nights booked on Airbnb increased 400% in Indonesia, 275% in Thailand, 547% in Malaysia, and 345% in the Philippines.
- Roomorama grew its inventory to 80,000 units and expected to quadruple this number by the end of 2013.
- Travelmob's listings increased by 415% in just a span of a few months from launch
Competition is intense in the vacation rental space. There are global players who have forayed into the market with their well established service and strategy, also there are good number of local players with heavy investment backing.
Competitors in Asia's vacation rental space have announced plans to increase their inventory, launch mobile apps, establish partnership with local players. We have to wait and see what Tujia has in store for its $63.7 million funding amount.
Tujia was founded by Luo Jun and Melissa Yang in December 2011. Luo has significant experience in real estate domain where as Melissa served as CTO of Escapia, a vacation rental software provider company that got acquired by HomeAway in October 2010.
Tujia claims to have over 400,000 holiday rental homes in 65 Chinese cities and 45 overseas locations.