HomeAway Mulls Venture Fund As It Hits A Milestone — techcrunch.com

The vacation rental marketplace HomeAway is pondering a move into backing startup companies. As it passes a recent milestone of breaking more than 1 million listings on its service, one of the first online marketplaces to challenge the hotel industry may begin making minority investments in companies that would add value to its service. “There are lots of entrepreneurs in the travel space — and now in particular around the vacation rental space,” says Brian Sharples, HomeAway’s co-founder and chief executive. “We’re very actively looking at [investing]. Historically we have either bought companies outright or bought a joint position.”

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