HOUSETRIP SECURES FUNDING & ANNOUNCES KEY HIRES

The company was co-founded in 2009 by Arnaud and Junjun Bertrand, who met while studying at the Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne in Switzerland, the world leading hospitality management school. Fascinated by the power of the Internet and the amazing alternative that holiday apartments are to hotels, they decided to dedicate themselves to making their vision of building the world’s largest holiday apartments website a reality.

A fast growing $85 billion market, holiday rentals are, according to Arnaud and Junjun, the future of travel. “When I see that for a mere £120 a night I can book on HouseTrip a fantastic 2-bedroom apartment in London city centre, when for the same amount you only get a 2-star hotel room in the outskirts, I am extremely confident in the future of our industry” Arnaud says.

To help execute on the vision, HouseTrip recently brought on David Norris as its Chief Operating Officer. Formerly COO at Livebookings and previously Website and eCommerce Operations Director at Expedia, David Norris commented, “When I met Arnaud and we discussed the HouseTrip proposition and business model I realised that I had found the perfect storm. HouseTrip makes so much sense for hosts and for guests and it’s an ideal chance for us to transform an industry in which I have 20 years experience”.

Commenting on the investment, Neil Rimer, co-founder and partner at Index Ventures said: ”HouseTrip offers a fantastic solution to vacationers looking for a delightful, hassle-free alternative to a hotel stay, and to apartment owners looking for an easy way to generate income from their apartment. Arnaud is an inspired entrepreneur with a tremendous vision and we are very excited about partnering with him and the team he is building at HouseTrip.”

With apartments listed in already more than 250 European destinations, HouseTrip.com is becoming more and more popular: its revenue grew by a factor of 16 in 2010 and the website is on track to have, as Arnaud puts it, “great apartments in all of Europe’s popular destinations” by the end of the year.

Arnaud adds: “In a nutshell, we have a superb opportunity in front of us: capturing it will take money, dedication and talent. We have Europe’s best investors behind us and are currently gathering online travel’s best minds. David is our first great addition to the team, we couldn’t be more thrilled to have him leading our operations.”

About HouseTrip
HouseTrip.com is Europe’s largest holiday apartment booking website. The concept is simple: when taking a trip, anyone can book a whole apartment or villa for the price of a hotel room. HouseTrip is easy and safe. Easy because guests book an apartment like they’d book a hotel, online and with a credit card. Safe because HouseTrip is scam-free, letting guests pay securely at the time of booking and only transferring payment to the host when the guests have started their stay. Holiday apartments owners also benefit from free listings on HouseTrip. HouseTrip.com was launched in January 2010 and has offices in Switzerland (Lausanne), Portugal (Lisbon) and the UK (London). HouseTrip already has listings in more than 350 destinations worldwide, with new accommodation being added every day, and is financed by Index Ventures and various business angels.
For more information, visit http://www.housetrip.com
For more information about HouseTrip please contact Héloise Delègue Marcom Manager, HouseTrip 020 7851 8670 ab@housetrip.com

About Index Ventures
Index Ventures is a leading venture capital firm active in technology and biotech venture investing since 1996. The firm is dedicated to helping entrepreneurial teams in the Information Technology and Life Science sectors to build their companies into market defining global leaders. Index invests in companies from the seed stage through to the growth stage. The firm has offices in Geneva, London and Jersey and will be opening an office in Silicon Valley in the fall of 2011. Index’s current portfolio includes Adconion, Astley Clarke, Criteo, Boku, Etsy, GroupSpaces, Lehigh, MOO, Ozon, Rightscale, Soundcloud, PostUp, Trialpay and viagogo. Exits of note include Lovefilm (acquired by Amazon), Betfair (LSE : BET.L), Playfish (acquired by Electronic Arts), MySQL (acquired by Sun), Last.fm (CBS) and Skype.
For more information, please visit www.indexventures.com.
For more information about Index Ventures please contact Sayula Kirby PR Manager INDEX VENTURES 020 7154 2009 sayula@indexventures.com