Changes at YC, $1.5B more for ride hailing, and Airbnb buys HotelTonight

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

View More Changes at YC, $1.5B more for ride hailing, and Airbnb buys HotelTonight

Blueground raises $20 million for flexible apartment rentals

Blueground, the startup providing turnkey flexible rental apartments, has raised $20 million in a round led by Athens-based VentureFriends, with participation from Endeavor Catalyst, Dubai’s Jabbar Internet Group, and serial entrepreneur Kevin Ryan. Ryan – who helped found MongoDB, Gilt Groupe, Zola, and others – will also join Blueground’s Board of Directors. It’s no secret […]

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Airbnb is using what3words to list stays with Mongolian nomads

Putting a new spin on the term ‘digital nomad’, UK addressing platform what3words has partnered with Airbnb to list stays with Mongolian nomads. The startup’s simplified addressing system is being applied to help adventurous travellers ‘home share’ with Dukha reindeer herders at their mountain camp where there aren’t any street names to anchor a trip.  The partnership is […]

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GoodTime raises $5 million to bring artificial intelligence into the interview process

GoodTime, the algorithmically enhanced interview process management platform, has raised $5 million in a new round of funding led by Bullpen Capital. The company uses natural language processing to link interview candidates with the right interviewers inside an organization. The idea is to make the hiring process run more smoothly for large organizations and give […]

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Mike Curtis, Airbnb’s VP of engineering, is leaving

Airbnb’s head of engineering will leave the company before the end of 2018 to pursue other projects and focus on his family. The news was first reported by The Information and later confirmed to TechCrunch by Airbnb. Curtis joined the home-sharing platform in 2013 after about two years as the director of engineering at Facebook. […]

View More Mike Curtis, Airbnb’s VP of engineering, is leaving

Airbnb wants to give its hosts equity in its business

Airbnb wants to give the homeowners who power its service the opportunity to own a piece of its business. That’s why, as Axios reports, the $31-billion-valued company has written to the SEC to ask if its rules around security ownership can be revised. Specifically, Airbnb is seeking a change to the SEC’s Rule 701 — which […]

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How Airbnb went from renting air beds for $10 to a $30 billion hospitality behemoth

Happy 10th anniversary Airbnb. When we first wrote about the company a decade ago, it was a spare website cobbled together by its founders for the low low price of $20,000. AirBed And Breakfast Takes Pad Crashing To A Whole New Level In the years since, the marketplace Airbnb created has radically transformed the rental […]

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New unicorn Klook raises $200M to expand its travel activities platform worldwide

Klook, a Hong Kong-based startup developing a travel activities platform, has pulled in $200 million in new capital to fuel a major expansion into the U.S. and Europe. A spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that the round values the company at more than $1 billion, although the company didn’t provide an exact figure. Klook sets out […]

View More New unicorn Klook raises $200M to expand its travel activities platform worldwide

Amsterdam to halve Airbnb-style tourist rentals to 30 nights a year per host

 City councillors in Amsterdam have decided to reduce by half the number of nights Airbnb hosts can rent out their apartments in the city — imposing a cap of 30 nights per year, down from the current 60 nights per years. The new limit will go into force in 2019. Read More

View More Amsterdam to halve Airbnb-style tourist rentals to 30 nights a year per host