They acquired a whole bunch of home rental sites from around the world. That's one way to go, I suppose. Even with all of that money, I bet more people know about AirBnB from their inauguration housing thing than have ever heard of HomeAway.
You cannot just say they are similar. They have a similar concept maybe.
Homeaway caters to a different type of audience, the one that can drop a few thousands on a vacation trip.
AirBnB caters to cost savvy individuals who just want to spend a couple of days in one location and don't need that fancy pool.
Also AirBnB is a small team so they could be lean and mean. homeaway has been around for nearly 4 years and that massive amount of money they have is to not only cover their operation costs, but also acquire innovative young companies such as AirBnB.
$250 million for a similar site? What am I missing? It's just so hard to fathom why a web startup would need so much money.