Airbnb is a great service where you can list your property and make some extra money by renting it out when you don’t need it. While most people only add a single property, there are some that want to add dozens of properties to Airbnb and that can be a big investment in time.
Property investors typically leverage Real Estate Agents to manage their properties, paying a percentage of revenue to avoid the hassle of dealing with clients, basic repairs and maintenance etc.
If that same property investor wants to use Airbnb because the returns are higher, then it’d be great to have a similar property management service. That’s where Hometime comes in, Australia and New Zealand’s leading Airbnb property management service.
Today they announced a new funding round that sees them raise a cool 6 million dollars with OneVentures, through its 1V Venture Credit Fund. The fund launched back in August 2018, raising up to AU$100M in funds available for high-growth technology companies.
The OneVentures Fund, which is a partnership between Australian firm OneVentures and Viola, Israel’s leading technology-focused Venture Credit fund and a major European market player.
The deal highlights the recent arrival of venture debt as an alternative funding option for Australian startups. Such deals are more common in the US and Europe where venture debt is used to extend runway between larger funding rounds and reduces dilution for existing shareholders.
Hometime will leverage the new capital to continue it’s impressive growth trajectory whilst preparing for a larger Series A round in early 2020. In 2018, Hometime grew by 450%, and it continues to be the pre-eminent provider of professional host services in the Australasian market, being the first Airbnb professional co-host in Australia and one of a few internationally.
“We believe that venture debt is an appropriate structure for a company such as ours, that is generating substantial revenue but needs additional working and acquisition capital in order to execute our aggressive growth plans. We were impressed by OneVentures’ extensive investor group and their willingness to partner with us as we continue to scale, and are delighted to be their inaugural fund investment.
The additional capital will be used to drive market expansion both domestically and internationally, and will power further development of our host platform, which enable us to deliver an exceptional local and personalised hosting experiences on a global scale.”
William Crock, Co-Founder of Hometime
Dr. Michelle Deaker, Managing Partner of OneVentures adds:
“We are delighted that our inaugural investment in the Fund is Hometime. Dave and William have built an impressive high-growth and customer focused business that is a strong use case for venture debt where the funds will be used for sales and market expansion. We anticipate a strong partnership with Hometime, to assist them in their growth into new Australasian markets, and beyond”.
