HousingAnywhere Acquires Competitor Kamarnet and Closes Series C Funding Round

The pan-European on-demand-housing portal company HousingAnywhere has announced this afternoon that it has acquired fellow Dutch-headquartered rental marketplace Kamarnet and has secured Series C funding of €24 million. Apart from funding the company's latest acquisition, the capital raised will be used to expand to 32 European cities as well as further the development of HousingAnywhere's technology platform.

Participating in the investment round were investment firms Ergeny Investments and VNV Global as well as Luxembourg -based holding company Real Web which is the parent company of market-leading Italian property portal Immobiliare.it and a controller of the Indomio Group of portals which includes market leaders in Slovenia (Nepremicnine.net) and Greece (Spitogatos.gr).

Along with its competitors in the medium term end-to-end rental space Spotahome and Uniplaces, HousingAnywhere was heavily impacted by the reduction in international mobility at the onset of the pandemic in March but according to today's press release the company has seen a strong rebound since the summer and secured new debt financing in July.

"While having devastating effects on international mobility, the pandemic offered us the opportunity to further develop our product. It enabled us to improve our contribution margins and explore local rental markets while accelerating the inevitable consolidation of the market. Despite turbulent market conditions, we managed to improve our business model, solidify the confidence of our investors and attract new capital." commented HousingAnywhere CEO Djordy Seelmann

The acquisition of Dutch player Kamarnet which specialises in short and medium-term rentals of small urban apartments is the fourth such move that HousingAnywhere has made in the last 12 months and follows hot on the heels of the company's acquisition of Italian competitor StanzaZoo in January. The company now claims to be "Europe's largest rental accommodation marketplace, with 10 million unique visitors per year and 60,000+ properties available for rent."

Read our comparison of HousingAnywhere, Spotahome and Uniplaces here.