California-based vacation rental startup Vakast closed recently a $1.3 million seed funding round, led by Blackstone Group senior managing director Chinh Chu and Ken Pansuria a founder of the Fine Hospitality Group, LLC. Nicky Nguyen, founder of NJ Enterprises Inc. also invested in the round.
With a patent pending platform, Vakast currently offers more than 1.5 million vacation rental properties around the globe in more than 10,000 cities and over 100 countries, according to the company the largest online inventory of vacation rentals worldwide. Vakast serves all kinds of customers, from backpackers to VIPs and celebrities.
“The Vakast team has quietly created an extremely robust platform to provide travelers with a single source solution for reviewing and booking more than 1.5 million vacation rental properties around the globe,” said Ken Pansuria. “With the peer-to-peer vacation rental market expected to reach more than $175 billion by 2016, we believe Vakast is well positioned to capture a significant share of the space with its simple, powerful and easy to use offering.”
Vakast will use the funds for development, and to further strengthen its position on the market.