Vacasa has raised another $5 million to help fuel growth of its vacation rental platform.
The Portland startup pulled in a $35 million round this past April, and on Monday announced another $5 million from investor Assurant in an expansion of its Series A round.
Vacasa bills itself as the “largest dedicated vacation rental management company in the U.S.” and offers a bevy of services — marketing, rate optimization, reservations, guest services, housekeeping, maintenance, etc. — to help homeowners earn money off their property.
The 7-year-old company had bootstrapped since launching in 2009 before announcing the $35 million round earlier this year, which is the highest for a Portland-based company since Puppet Labs raised $40 million in June 2014.
One differentiating aspect of Vacasa is its on-the-ground local staff in cities around the world that help with everything from property managers to housekeeping to maintenance professionals. It also uses a proprietary yield management technology that updates price rates daily based on hundreds of variables like weather, events, competitor pricing and occupancy, regional demand trends, season demand curves, and more.
Vacasa makes money by charging each property owner a fee in exchange for the management help. There are more than 4,100 properties on the platform.
Vacasa will use the new money to expand around the world and double its workforce in 2016. In June, the company moved into a new 40,000 square foot office in Portland, where it employs 300. Vacasa also has 100 employees in Boise, and another 1,000 spread across 14 U.S. states and five countries.
