Oasis Receives $2.5 Million for Its Hotel-Style Home Rentals: Travel Startup Funding This Week

It has been a busy time for tech providers behind corporate ground transport services. This week Marcou Transportation Group acquired GroundLink, a service that enables corporate travel managers to schedule black car service and that had raised $20 million.

Two of GroundLink’s rivals also merged, when iCars bought Limos.com this month. (Limos.com had raised more than $15 million.)

Each week we create a roundup of travel startups that have received or announced funding that week. The total amount raised this week was more than $5.5 million.

>>Oasis, a company founded in Buenos Aires but now headquartered in Miami, offers vacation rentals at more than 2,000 luxury properties worldwide (up an additional 500 from a year ago). This week it received an investment of $2.5 million (about 39 million Argentine pesos) as a convertible note from an “undisclosed investor.” The latest funding brings its total investment to an estimated $20 million.

Oasis says it pioneered the “home meets hotel” category of accommodations. Guests enjoy hotel-style amenities during their vacation rental stays.

Last year, AccorHotels took a 30 percent equity share in the company, which debuted in 2009. Last year AccorHotels also acquired brands including Onefinestay, Squarebreak, and John Paul — which all are part of the luxury home and concierge sector. See our earlier story, “What AccorHotels’ Entry Into the Sharing Economy Means for the Future of Hotels.”

>>llollo, an on-demand valet parking app, has raised $1.29 million (or 1.2 million euros) in its latest venture round, for a total of more than $2.7 million (or 2.5 million euros) in funding. Travelers can use the mobile app to request in real-time an agent who parks the car on their behalf at airports and train stations, starting with Madrid and Barcelona.

This round includes past investors like B4Motion, Stella Maris Partners, and Avianta Capital. The company, founded in 2015, plans to use the funding to expand to the United Kingdom and expand into car rental, too. It says it has 75 employees and 20,000 active users, thanks to corporate travel deals with more than 150 companies such as Banco Santander, Carrefour, HP, and Boston Consulting Group.

>>Wanderlust, a startup in Japan that runs Compathy (a platform where travelers trade itinerary recommendations), has landed a Series A round of $1.1 million (130 million yen).

Founded in 2013 out of a coder’s boot camp, Compathy says it has 1.5 million active users and 40,000 trip records. Mobile Internet Capital led the round. SMBC Capital also participated.

Compathy cleverly allows users to upload photos of their travel journeys in sync with Facebook, sparing users an extra step.

>>Lithodomos VR, an Australian virtual reality archaeological startup, has raised $680,000 ($900,000 in Australian dollars) in a seed funding round.

The Melbourne-based company creates scientifically and historically plausible 3D reconstructions of the ancient world for use by museums, destination marketers, and other travel stakeholders.

>>Tripaneer is a Dutch startup that creates several booking and content websites for themed travel experiences. For example, it has made BookYogaRetreats.com, which it says is the largest yoga travel website with 2,895 organizers in 254 destinations.

Tripaneer has raised an undisclosed investment round from angel venture capitalist Point Nine’s III fund. The funding must be significant because Tripaneer is going on a hiring spree. It faces competition from long-standing companies like Travelpd.

Check out all our previous startup funding roundups, here.