Airbnb Moves Out to More Global Locales

Apartment rental and sublet website Airbnb likes its overseas presence so much that it wants to grow that vertical, apparently no longer satisfied with being active in just 17,000 markets worldwide.

To that end, the San Francisco-based company, one of the big success stories of Paul Graham's Y Combinator incubator, is teaming up with another accelerator, this time on the other side of the globe.

German business incubator Springstar announced today that it is backing Airbnb's expansion strategy, TechCrunch reports. Airbnb has previously bought a German equivalent, and now has an office in Hamburg.

Springstar's expertise is in helping Web-based companies expand into emerging markets. It's portfolio includes companies in Germany, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, Russia, and India.

Airbnb is going to need the help. While it was a disruptive startup in the U.S. market, internationally it faces plenty of competition in companies like Wimdu, 9flats.com, Crashpadder, iStopOver, and CouchSurfing, with new competitors entering the market virtually on a daily basis, TechCrunch reports.

But that isn't stopping Airbnb's three cofounders, Nathan Blecharczyk, Brian Chesky, and Joe Gebbia, who founded the company in 2008, from enjoying a year of stellar—albeit controversial—growth. The trio raised more than $100 million in venture capital, signed Ashton Kutcher as an angel investor, but also faced criticism that it has grown too far, too fast following the high-profile ransacking of one woman's home and allegations that it farmed listings from Craigslist.

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