MyTwinPlace Closes €750.000 From BlaBlaCar Founder And Other VC’s

MyTwinPlace is a global community of home owners who exchange nights with other members of the community.

There is no money exchanged between the home-owners, but you get points for renting your home to others, which you later use to rent other homes around the globe.

The startup recently closed a round of €750.000 from big VC’s such as Inveready and Sabadell Venture Capital, but also business angels, including BlaBlaCar co-founder Vincent Rosso.

Founded by Xavier Laballos and Jean Saunier in Barcelona back in 2012, MyTwinPlace now closes their biggest round of funding so far. Their last significant funding was back in 2014, when they received a €155.000 grant.

• Also read: Airbnb’s New User-Generated Guidebooks Challenges (but may also help) Barcelona Startups

 

One billion nights

At this moment MyTwinPlace have homes in 160 different countries and 35.000 users sharing their homes with each other.

One of the investors, co-founder of BlaBlaCar Vincent Rosso, predicts a drastic growth in the market of home sharing:

“MyTwinPlace proposes an innovative community-based approach in the home sharing sector, in which members achieve significant savings thanks to their second homes. This market is expected to reach one billion nights by 2025”.

MyTwinPlace’s CEO Jean-Noël Saunier explains how the funding will be allocated:

“We plan to leverage the investment to strengthen our presence in countries where we are already strong, such as Spain, France, Italy, the United States and the United Kingdom”.

Strategic alliances

Without mentioning who or in what sector, the CEO says that they’re planning to partner up to keep growing:

“We will also focus our growth efforts on offering a wider range of destinations. In addition, we will continue to close strategic alliances to add value for travelers beyond accommodation.”

Sabadell Venture Capital’s Xavier Gasquez thinks MyTwinPlace is a good solution for a lot of people struggling with renting on other existing platforms:

“It answers not only to the traveler’s need to reduce the cost of their trips, in which accommodation accounts for 50%, but it also provides a solution to homeowners who during much of the year are unable to rent their properties through other platforms”.

For those of you who run your own company, MyTwinPlace also has a seperate flat-sharing service for entrepreneurs, making it easier (and cheaper) for entrepreneurs to travel and connect to like-minded people.

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