As part of HomeAway’s third quarter earnings release, which included the announcement of its $3.9 billion acquisition by Expedia, the company revealed today how much it paid to acquire Seattle-based vacation rental startup Dwellable last month: $18 million.
When HomeAway and Dwellable announced the acquisition in early October, the two companies did not disclose terms of the deal, with Dwellable CEO Kirby Winfield only saying it was a positive outcome for investors.
Founded in 2005 and based in Austin, Texas, HomeAway was a primary rival of Dwellable, a startup that launched three years ago by developers Nathan Kriege and Adam Doppelt. On a shoestring budget, Dwellable — which raised just $2 million in funding — built an immersive and highly-rated app which in many ways outperformed the offerings from the much larger HomeAway.
Backers of Dwellable included Howard Schultz’s Maveron and Boris Wertz’s Version One Ventures, as well as prominent Seattle angel investors like Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff, Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman, Mixpo CEO Jeff Lanctot and Farecast founder Oren Etzioni. In addition, former HomeAway board member and ex-Groupon president Rob Solomon was an investor.
As a result of the acquisition, six members of the Dwellable team — including Doppelt and Kriege — will move to Austin, with Winfield not joining HomeAway and staying in Seattle. We’ve reached out to HomeAway to find out if the Dwellable team will remain in Seattle as a result of the Expedia acquisition announced today. Update: Since the deal has not closed, HomeAway is not commenting on if the Dwellable employees will remain in Seattle.
HomeAway, which has a market capitalization of about $3 billion, said last month that it plans to phase out the popular Dwellable app and service in the next 30 days, and the company is no longer facilitating new reservations through the service. Property owners are now being directed to HomeAway.
