MyVR Raises $1.4M From YC, SV Angel, Chris Dixon To Attack The $85B Vacation Rental Industry
The vacation rental industry is often overlooked, especially relative to hotels. So it might surprise you to learn that it’s actually a massive market, with bookings generating over $85 billion annually — in the U.S and Europe alone. And this doesn’t even take into account the new peer-to-peer apartment rental platforms (like Airbnb), which have begun to cater to vacation renters as well. The industry as a whole stands to see continued growth going forward as behavior changes — as families increasingly choose to rent apartments and vacation homes when traveling, rather than staying in a hotel.
On the flip side, thanks to the HomeAways, Airbnb and p2p marketplaces of the world, more and more people are looking to rent their apartments, homes and, soon, even their broom closets. There are currently some six million active vacation rentals in the U.S. and Europe, and this number is heading north. However, the problem is that the vast majority of vacation rental owners aren’t taking advantage of the available technology to market, manage or share their properties.
MyVR, a San Francisco-based startup that graduated from Y Combinator in March, sees a big opportunity to help owners and operators alleviate the offline pain of managing their vacation rentals and help bring them new (or at least more regular) business. Co-founders Jonathan Murray and Mike Stachowiak are both owners themselves and initially built MyVR as a side project to help solve their own frustrations with the process.
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