HomeAway

HomeAway.com, Inc.

Type	Public
Traded as	NASDAQ: AWAY
Industry	Travel
Founded	February 2005
Founders	Brian Sharples and Carl Shepherd
Headquarters	Austin, TX, USA
Key people	Brian Sharples (CEO) Carl Shepherd (CDO) Brent Bellm (COO) Tom Hale (CPO) Ross Buhrdorf (CTO) Lynn Atchison (CFO)
Services	Vacation Rentals
Website	HomeAway.com

HomeAway, Inc. is a vacation rental marketplace with more than 1,000,000^[1] vacation rental listings in 190 countries,^[2] and has 1588 employees.^[3] It has operated through 40 websites in 22 languages as of December 31, 2014. The company offers the most comprehensive selection of rentals^[4] for families and groups to find accommodations such as cabins, condos, castles, villas, barns and farm houses.^[5] Founded in February 2005 and headquartered in Austin, the company became publicly traded company in 2011.^[6]

History

HomeAway, Inc. was founded in 2004 as CEH Holdings.^[7] The company acquired several sites and consolidated them into a single vacation marketplace, launching HomeAway.com in June 2006.^[8] Travelers can search HomeAway.com to find a vacation rental for free and homeowners can pay to advertise their property.^[9]

The acquisitions that HomeAway has made include:

HomeAway moved into its new global headquarters in Austin, Texas on October 2, 2009; it was the first mixed-use project and the second company rin Austin to achieve LEED Gold certification for Commercial Interior Design.^[24]

On November 18, 2009, Us Weekly magazine announced that HomeAway would reunite actors Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo in a new short film and advertising campaign based on National Lampoon’s Vacation (a movie). The HomeAway ad represents the company’s first national advertising campaign that debuted during the CBS television network broadcast of Super Bowl XLIV on February 7, 2010.^[25]

Before going public in mid-2011, HomeAway raised a total of $405 million in venture-capital which was funded by venture capital firms Austin Ventures, Institutional Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Technology Crossover Ventures and Trident Capital.^[26] Currently, Homeaway’s valuation is approximately $2.9 billion.^[27] Homeaway’s IPO stock closed at $40.21 on Nasdaq, up 48.9% from its IPO price of $27. The stock price has since hovered around $35.

On 5 March 2014, the company announced that through an all-cash transaction, it acquired the U.S. mobile application ‘Glad to Have You’ (GLAD).^[28][29][30]

In 2015, HomeAway invested $4.9 million^[31] in CanadaStays to increase the number of Canadian properties from less than 10,000 to more than 220,000.^[32] The partnership makes HomeAway a minority stakeholder in CanadaStays, who is the largest vacation rental site in Canada and based in Toronto.^[33]

A summary of the company's financial information over the last four years:

Business model

Before HomeAway introduced its new performance-based business model in 2013, homeowners paid subscription fees which averaged out to be $442 annually, to list their own property or display their vacation rentals on the company’s sites.^[3] To promote the vacation rentals, property owners and managers purchase paid listings in advance as a form of advertising to potential travelers on more than one of its website, typically for one year. Paid listings will appear in search results when travelers search for vacation rentals, based on their search criteria. As of December 2012, paid listings accounted for 84.9% of HomeAway’s revenue.^[38]

After the new alternative performance-based system was launched, homeowners now have two options: a pay-per booking model or the longtime subscription-fee model. In the new model, homeowners must now forgo a 10% commission for each booking instead of an annual subscription fee. Besides the commission, guests are not charged for any booking fee.^[39] This free listing option saw that the number of listings grew by 20% from 500,000 to over 600,000 within 5 months of its introduction.^[40]

HomeAway also introduced a Professional Referral Network of 40 partner companies, of whom include Evolve Vacation Rental Network, Southern California Vacation Rentals and No Worries Vacation Rentals, to work with vacation rental owners in managing their listings, guest inquiries and reservations. This arrangement charges an average of 20% per booking, where partners and owners work together in handling guest-related matters and owners continue to manage their own property.^[41]

A challenge that HomeAway faces is working to increase free listings without upsetting the balance between the supply of properties and the demand from potential renters. The company also has to make sure that free listings appear prominently enough so that they generate bookings, while not affecting paid listings.^[42]

Financing

HomeAway announced in November 2006 its $160 million in financing to fund global expansion initiatives, including the acquisition of VRBO.com (Vacation Rentals by Owner).^[26] On November 11, 2008, HomeAway announced it had completed an additional $250 million equity capital raise.^[43] The investment was led by Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) and with existing investors Austin Ventures, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) and Redpoint Ventures.^[44] In 2010 the Wall Street Journal named HomeAway one of the top 10 venture funded companies.^[45]

Partial list of competitors

See also

• Wimdu
• Travelmob
• Hospitality service
• Vacasa

References

External links

• HomeAway Official Site