TravelRent short term rent service received $ 2 M from Frontier Ventures

Frontier Ventures Fund that invests in Russian and the CIS Internet projects has invested $ 2 M in TravelRent.com service that offers a short term rent of private housing.

TravelRent.com is the first online service in Russia that offers a short term rent of private housing launched in late October 2011. According to TravelRent representatives, there are more than 15,000 apartments in more than 600 cities around the world in company’s database including resort areas and business centers.

The investment will be spent on team strengthening, developing new partnerships and marketing programs to increase brand awareness and expansion of TravelRent database. In particular, TravelRent.com team plans to expand the active database offers up to 45,000 housing units in Russia, CIS and the world by 2013. By 2015, TravelRent plans to attract no less than five million registered users.

The team of the portal and its investment partners appreciate the potential of the resource and online booking market in general. Experts predict that Russian market will grow by 40% in 2012 and total more than $ 6 B. According to PhoCusWright, online sales will amount to $ 10.4 B in Russia by 2013.

Dmitry Alimov, the founder and managing partner of Frontier Ventures, said: We are very interested to supplement our portfolio with a company operating in Russia’s growing rental market. Our partnership is not limited to the equity financing. Our experience in entrepreneurship and the development of innovative Internet projects, as well as in determining the strategy and its adaptation to Russian-speaking market allows us to provide comprehensive support to the company and make TravelRent a leader in this fast growing market.