Wimdu.com Sends Individualists on Holiday With a New Platform for Accommodation of all Kinds

• "Travel Like a Local": Stay in a Private Home and get to Know Cities and Countries Through the Eyes of a Local.
• Take the Hard Work out of Renting out Your own Place and Earn Yourself a Decent bit of Extra Income Into the Bargain.
• On the Road to Success: Following Their Successful Involvement With Projects Such as Zalando and CityDeal, Rocket Internet is Investing in Wimdu.com

Travel like a local": Wimdu (wimdu.com) is setting up a central platform which will bring together providers of all different kinds of private accommodation across the world and travellers looking for a place to stay. Those who prefer the taste of freedom to being cooped up in a hotel can now breathe a sigh of relief: the online marketplace wimdu.com offers holidaymakers a wide range of unique places to stay and gives them the opportunity to get to know cities and countries through the eyes of a local. But this platform not only benefits those on their travels: anyone can rent out their own flat, house or even a room and bring in some useful extra income.

"Almost everyone loves to travel and explore foreign countries and their cultures but a typical hotel holiday will give you little appreciation of a place's local charm. Living amongst the local people, however, gives you a chance to sample the more exciting things a place has to offer," says Arne Bleckwenn, Wimdu's founder. And travellers can pick up useful insider info not just from their hosts but from other people too: Wimdu's fair and open feedback system allows both providers and holiday guests to evaluate their experiences and leave feedback or recommendations. Founders Arne Bleckwenn and Hinrich Dreiling are also investing in a comprehensive social media strategy which will give users a further forum on which to exchange ideas. All this will help future guests to make decisions before they leave home about such things as where to get the best burgers in New York, in whose shared flat they can borrow a bike and whether the bed linen at Maria's place in Rome really does have that holiday smell!

With the ultimate aim of building a global network, Wimdu is starting up in eleven languages and is active in Europe, Asia and America. The company, based in Berlin, is financed by Rocket Internet who, following their successful involvement with projects such as Zalando and Citydeal, are now giving their backing to a start-up in the travel sector.