Indonesia’s Airbnb, where users can negotiate the price, raises $2m

Travelio team.

Accommodation booking site Travelio today raised a US$2 million pre-series A round led by Shanghai-based venture capital firm Gobi Partners.

Travelio offers accommodation in hotel rooms, apartments, and private villas. Its unique proposition is that it gives travelers a chance to negotiate the price. They can choose to book instantly at the fixed rate, or they can make a proposal, which will then either be picked up or rejected by the property owner.

“70 percent use the negotiation model,” says Christina Suriadjaja, Travelio’s co-founder. This works well in a market like Indonesia, where hotel occupancy is traditionally low. For hotels, it’s at 50 percent, for private properties even less, Christina explains.

Doing things a bit differently

Travelio started out as a corporate venture born out of SSIA, a publicly listed property, hospitality, and construction business in Indonesia. The director of SSIA is Christina’s father, and all three of Travelio’s initial co-founders held positions at SSIA prior to starting Travelio.

A holiday home in Bali, Indonesia. Photo credit: Catriona Ward.

The co-founders, Christina says, hold the majority of the shares. When the young company began to see traction, it decided to open up for venture capital.

With Gobi’s backing, Travelio aims to grow the number of listings on its site and strengthen its presence in Indonesia. SSIA’s large network of properties is already waiting in line to be onboarded.

“The media have compared us to Airbnb, but that’s not quite correct,” Christina says. Travelio doesn’t deal with hosts, but with agents who work on behalf of property owners.

China’s Tujia is closer to Travelio’s business model. Christina adds that given the high interest of Chinese VCs in Southeast Asian startups, going forward with Gobi Partners was a logical step.

Singapore’s Anthill Ventures and existing investor SSIA also participated in the round, along with a number of angel investors.