Lofty's landing page.
Roomorama, a Singapore-based vacations rental site, has merged with Lofty, a similar service, to scale up their business, reported TechCrunch.
They’ve also secured US$2.1M in seed funding from individuals like Jose Marin and venture capital firms PROFounders, Lerer Media, and Thrive Capital.
Lofty will be folded into Roomorama’s existing platform, with their B2B sales and management team transferred over but not their technical side. Read more
Filed under Funding, Innovation & Technology, News, Technology, Venture Capital & Private Equity, WebTags: Collaborative consumption, jia en teo, jose marin, lerer media, lofty, M&A, profounders, roomorama, sharing economy, short-term rental, Singapore
Asians are getting wealthier, and the Asian tourism sector is one of the fastest growing in the world. At the same time, they’re also getting more Internet saavy, and while infrastructure in developing countries are lacking, that has not stopped them from accessing the Internet in droves through their mobile phones.
These two trends present tantalizing opportunities for startups who want to reach out to a new generation of young Asian travelers with increasingly sophisticated tastes. And indeed, many startups in Singapore and Asia are starting to do so.
Here, we survey some of the interesting travel startups in Singapore, and tease out some trends that may very well represent the future of Asia’s booming tourism industry.
Photo: The Golden Stupa in Laos. Asia is becoming a popular tourism destination as well as a source of affluent tourists. By Rolling Okie
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Filed under Featured, Innovation & Technology, Special Commentary, Technology, WebTags: 3rd planet, 9flats, Airbnb, comesingapore, eco travel services, FlightLover, flocations, getflight, gobedrock, guidebnb, oneairport, qiito, roomavailability.info, roomorama, SaaS, sharing economy, software-as-a-service, tourism industry, travel startups, traveller international, travelogy, tripzilla, uniq travel planner
The Roomorama co-founders believe their short-term rentals website can compete with Airbnb.
The downside of trailing behind a market leader is that you’re often compared with them. Sites like Roomorama, 9flats, and Wimdu certainly have to deal with this reality — since Airbnb was the first to launch their short term rentals site in August 2008.
But just because you’re last off the starting block doesn’t mean you’ll flounder. Facebook, for example, quickly overtook Friendster and MySpace to become the defacto social network for Bieber-idolizing teens and longsighted grannies alike.
Roomorama is more accurately described as a fraternal twin than a clone. The website, co-founded by Singaporean Teo Jia En and Italian native Federico Folcia, was birthed in January 2009 — just five months after Airbnb.
But the idea was already developing while they were colleagues at the Bloomberg office in New York City. As avid travelers, they found it challenging to get cheap accommodation while vacationing in Europe.
At the same time, while they wanted to rent out their own apartment, existing online classifieds were hard to use and inconvenient.
Their business idea blossomed. And now, with more than 30,000 listed properties around the globe, the team has recently shifted part of their base of operations to Singapore to focus on growth in the Asian markets. Read more
Filed under Featured, Innovation & Technology, Technology, WebTags: 9flats, Airbnb, Collaborative consumption, roomorama, sharing economy, short-term rental, teo jia en, travel startups
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