Indonesia-based home rental startup Travelio has raised an undisclosed Series C funding round led by a large Korean financial group.

Travelio said in a statement on Monday that amidst the wintery funding landscape in Southeast Asia, the firm has managed to secure its Series C up-round from investors.

It included participation from new investors such as Korea’s DAOL Ventures (former KTB), Orzon Ventures (powered by Thailand Conglomerate PTTOR and 500 Global) and Appworks from Taiwan.

Temasek’s Pavilion Capital as an existing investor also participated in the round.

According to the statement, part of the fresh funding obtained will be used to launch a new vertical in the rent-to-own sector.

“We are excited to launch this new initiative as it will solve the low home ownership issue for middle class millennials, which makes up the majority of our tenants,

“This way, we won’t just be a temporary solution for them for a couple of years but instead for their lifetime.” said Christina Suriadjaja, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Travelio.

Travelio is a Jakarta-based online short‐term home rental startup.

Since 2019, the vacancy rate of apartments in Indonesia is still at a staggering level above 50 percent. However, the average annual primary apartment unit sales rate is still quite high, ranging between 87 percent to 89 percent.

Travelio has seen its business model effective in providing high rental income for apartment owners who have not seen sufficient return prior to Travelio’s service, and is also viewed as an affordable rental option for tenants seeking to rent apartments for short to long-term periods.

Travelio has more than 15,000 properties exclusively managed by the platform.

It is currently operating in 12 cities namely Jakarta, Tangerang, Bekasi, Bogor, Depok, Bandung, Surabaya, Semarang, Karawang, Makassar, Yogyakarta and Medan. It has plans to expand to other cities this year.

It is noted that Travelio is the only online and transactional platform in Indonesia that allows tenants to pay monthly for a yearly rental.

Tenants have adapted to this flexible payment scheme from the formerly cash heavy way of making a down payment of 20 percent and paying an advanced security deposit for more than a year’s worth of rent.

Aside from providing fully-furnished apartments, Travelio has expanded its product to unfurnished apartments and houses.

Its property management arm that operates fully-furnished apartments has achieved adjusted EBITDA positive since last year.

Travelio as a group is expected to achieve adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) positive by the end of this year.

The company now has more than 600 staff and has not performed any downsizing activities nor layoffs ever since the pandemic.

Last week, Travelio celebrated their 8th birthday at its Jakarta headquarters. The company is also seen to be actively hiring for new personnel.

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