S’pore-based rental website Roomorama merges with Lofty, gets US$2.1M seed capital

Lofty's landing page.

Roomorama, a Singapore-based vacations rental site, has merged with Lofty, a similar service, to scale up their business, reported TechCrunch.

They’ve also secured US$2.1M in seed funding from individuals like Jose Marin and venture capital firms PROFounders, Lerer Media, and Thrive Capital.

Lofty will be folded into Roomorama’s existing platform, with their B2B sales and management team transferred over but not their technical side.

Roomorama co-founder Jia En Teo will become co-COO with Brion Olivier, previously Lofty’s CEO.

Both sites have merged because they complement each other. For starters, both sites are focused on the middle to high-end travel market.

And while Roomorama has customers but lacks inventory, Lofty has inventory but lacks customers. Finally, both companies’ businesses focuses on different regions. Roomorama’s activities are primarily concentrated in Asia, while Lofty’s business is concentrated in the West: A third in the United States and another third in Europe.

At the moment, Roomorama’s  average gross booking value is US$1,300, with 80 percent of bookings between eight and 14 days. They have about 50,000 listed properties in about 3,600 locations.

The company aims to double their properties by 2012, while keeping their focus on high quality accommodation, reliability, and closing transactions quickly.

Roomorama was founded in 2009, just five months after Airbnb. Last year, they’ve set up operations in Singapore with the aim of expanding to the rest of Asia.

Unlike Airbnb, Roomorama focuses more on the high-end market, and relies more on rental market professionals to supply accommodations.

They also have a perks program for travelers visiting certain locations, as well as a series of websites called How Not To Be A Tourist that supplies useful local information for tourists.