Funding Injection for secondporch.com

Facebook-based vacation rentals application secondporch.com has just closed a US$1 million round of Series-A investment financing, led by the Oregon Angel Fund.

secondporch.com launched in public beta last September, and allows vacation rental property owners to list their homes on Facebook for free. The website says the new funds will be used to continue the company’s expansion into the vacation home rental and home exchange markets.

“secondporch.com tackles the unsolved piece of the marketing opportunity for vacation homeowners by bringing an easy to use system to effectively and tastefully market to the best possible source of guests: people you already know and with whom you have some degree of trust”, said Brent Hieggelke, secondporch.com CEO.

Hieggelke has welcomed the recent Hitwise figures that show Facebook has just surpassed Google to become the most visited website for the week ending 13 March.

On the topic of holiday rental websites, the people behind European holiday rentals portal housetrip.com have been hard at work making improvements to their portal, which is no longer displaying the “beta” tag.

According to a housetrip.com blog post, recent upgrades to the portal include redesigns for the homepage and search results, a new look for property profile pages, and changes to the online booking process. The housetrip.com messaging system has also been upgraded again to improve communication between hosts and guests.

housetrip.com was launched in September last year, and won the Best Travel Startup award at the 2009 World Travel Market.

1. Vacation Rentals Arrive on Facebook

   secondporch.com allows vacation rental property owners to list their homes on Facebook for free and control who sees their listings....

2. housetrip.com Wins Best Travel Startup

   housetrip.com, the European holiday rentals portal launched last month, has already attracted attention at the World Travel Market. The free-to-list portal, which covers property and rooms for short-term rent, was chosen as the best of a group of 17 start-ups after two days of product pitches....

3. New Portal for European Holiday Rentals

   housetrip.com is free-to-list and covers properties and rooms for short-term rent across Europe. ...

4. homeaway.com Launches Marketplace

   Holiday rentals portal homeaway.com has launched what it says is the first online marketplace dedicated to buying, selling and identifying vacation homes with rental potential. The launch comes after homeaway.com acquired two holiday rentals websites - bedandbreakfast.com and aluguetemporada.com.br - in March....

5. $10 Million Funding Boost for redfin.com

   redfin.com are celebrating the completion of a US$10 million round of funding led by Greylock Partners’ James Slavet and David Thacker. The US online brokerage’s group of existing investors – Madrona Venture Group, Vulcan Capital, DFJ and The Hillman Company – also contributed....