Vamo, the Seattle-based multi-city trip planning service, has been acquired by Airbnb. The service has already stopped accepting new reservations and the site will stop almost all functionality by Oct. 1.
Founded three years ago by former Facebook executive Ari Steinberg — who previously led the social networking giant’s Seattle operation — Vamo helped travelers plan trips through multiple cities. The startup was backed by a range of investors, including U2’s Bono, Code.org founder Hadi Partovi, entrepreneur Dave Morin, Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff and others.
While Vamo didn’t use Airbnb for lodging its multi-city bookings, the six person travel-focused team will likely strengthen Airbnb’s roster of engineers.
“[We will be] working on trying to improve the experience for travelers who are booking through Airbnb,” Steinberg said. “We’re all really excited to join the company.”
The deal was born out of Steinberg’s friendship with Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky.
“I’ve known Brian for a while,” Stienberg said. “I’ve always kind of admired what they’ve been up to and it was a good time to join, so we decided to do it.”
All Vamo’s employees will stay on with Airbnb, relocating to the company’s San Francisco headquarters. Steinberg will continue to run the Vamo team when they join Airbnb. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
