Travala.com raises $5m to launch home-sharing blockchain platform Dtravel

Venture aims to address ‘outsized control’ from ‘centralised corporations’

A new decentralised platform in the home-sharing sector has launched by blockchain-based OTA Travala.com with $5 million of backing from key industry investors.

Dtravel, touted as a rival to Airbnb, has secured backing from former executives from Airbnb, Expedia, and other global technology companies in a seed funding round.

Binance-backed Travala.com says it has launched the decentralised platform to facilitate short and long-term stays payable with cryptocurrency and traditional payment methods.

Investors backing the venture include Kenetic Capital, Future Perfect Ventures, DHVC, Plutus VC, GBV Capital, AU21 Capital, Shima Capital, LD Capital and NGC Ventures.

Juan Otero, co-founder and chief executive of Travala.com, said: “Traditional home sharing platforms are aligned with their users in the early stages, but over time this changes.

“With the need to return profits to shareholders, home-sharing platforms are forced to extract as much as possible from transactions on their platforms.

“Dtravel meets the needs of the home-sharing community first and forever. It’s easy-to-use, highly secure, and optimised for the next generation of hosts and guests looking to take back control of their travel experience.”

Governed by its community via the Dtravel Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO) and using blockchain finance technology for smart contracts, Dtravel “repairs the broken relationship between hosts and guests created by existing centralised home-sharing platforms to deliver the world’s first true sharing economy,” the firm said.

Dtravel is powered by its native token TRVL, which will soon be added to the Binance Smart Chain and Ethereum Network, which is held by all hosts and can be used for booking stays, qualifying for rewards and participating in platform governance.

The first 100,000 hosts to register are eligible to receive over $35 million worth of TRVL tokens.

Jalak Jobanputra, Founding Partner of Future/Perfect Ventures, said:  “Sharing economies are authentic and sustainable only when they are governed and controlled by stakeholders, and the home-sharing ecosystem has been broken for years under outsized control from centralised corporations.

“It’s time for a community-owned and community-governed replacement.

“With travel starting to rebound and a record level of interest in blockchain technologies like cryptocurrencies, Dtravel gives eager people what has been missing to date: control and ownership over their own travel experiences.

“By allowing guests and hosts full participation in their experiences and in the economy they are creating, Dtravel fulfills the true mission of sharing economies.”