Airbnb, an online marketplace for convenient lodging, bought startup Proprly without leaving any clue behind. However, the amount of the acquisition has not been revealed by the giant. This purchase denotes that Airbnb’s aim to go beyond bookings and set itself as a one-stop solution for travel as its 2018 acquisition of Luckey suggested.
Proprly, an on-demand hospitality service provider, goes beyond and offers services like room cleaning, security, insurance and customize services for short term rentals. While Airbnb has closed Proprly, its aim may have been to experiment to create more in-house services with this deal.
Though Airbnb never showed interest in offering the aforementioned hospitality services, however, the acquisition of Luckey, a property management software firm, gave a clue to experts to think whether it’s going to change its strategy.
The rise in the popularity of firms like Airbnb and HomeAway’s VRBO, a similar industry has popped up and Proprly, which serves the newly emerged requirements of the property owners, got a lot of relevance in such a scenario. Eventually, a whole new array of companies have made their foray into the market now.
Founder of Proprly, Randy Engler, joined Airbnb after the acquisition. However, his LinkedIn profile reflects that he is presently working on its Olympian partnership team.
It’s notable that Airbnb disclosed when it acquired companies like HotelTonight and Luxury Retreats, however, experts are still in vague why it did not reveal when it purchased Proprly.
Other than these acquisitions, Airbnb has been relatively silent about its other purchases like Eliot, an on-demand rental pricing tool, and Minbox, a cloud storage startup.
As Airbnb plans to go public by the end of 2020, it has acquired more than 2 dozen startups until now. All and all, the investor will have a close eye over the acquired companies and how much benefit they bring to the giant.
