Chinese short-term rental sites secure $20m in VC backing

According to TechinAsia, Beijing-based Xiaozhu.com (translated as "little pigs") has raised nearly US$10 million in Series A funding while Mayi.com (translated as "ants") attracted the same amount when it spun off from its parent company, Ganji. Mayi's round was led by VantagePoint with participation from BlueRun Ventures and Sequoia Capital. 

Xiaozhu.com, which has not yet revealed who its investors are, was  launched in August and advertises properties across 13 Chinese cities. Meanwhile, Mayi.com claims to have surpassed 300,000 rented room nights in its first year of operations.

Each the website conforms closely to a model first established by US website Airb2b, which allows users to advertise and sell rooms in their own homes to tourists and backpackers on a per-night basis.

The space is already getting crowded in China as the companies join a third website, Tujia.com, which secured it own Series A round of funding some eight months earlier. Among its investors are China's biggest online travel company, Ctrip, and American vacation rentals site HomeAway.

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Technology
• Greater China
• Venture
• Early-stage
• TMT
• China
• Sequoia Capital
• VantagePoint Capital Partners
• BlueRun Ventures
• Venture