Airbnb Acquires Apple's Siri's Co-founders' AI Startup GamePlanner.AI

Airbnb, on Tuesday, announced that it has acquired GamePlanner.AI, a stealth 12-person AI company led by Adam Cheyer and Siamak Hodjat.

The AI Startup was co-founded by Adam Cheyer, who was one of the founders of Apple's popular voice assistant— Siri. 

Media outlet CNBC, citing its sources, has reported that this acquisition deal is valued at just under $200 million.

On the acquisition, Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky said, “What makes GamePlanner.AI so special is that they combine expertise in AI, design, and community. AI will rapidly alter our world more than any other technology in our lifetime, but we need to ensure that it augments humanity in a positive way. Airbnb is one of the more humanistic companies in technology, and I believe that, together with Adam and his team, we can develop some of the best interfaces and practical applications for AI. "

While Airbnb is already using AI across our service, including large language models, computer vision models and machine learning – and most recently, an AI-powered Photo Tour tool launched in our 2023 Winter Release – Adam and Siamak’s team will focus on accelerating select AI projects and integrating their tools into our platform.

Adam co-founded Siri, which was acquired by Apple, and then led server side engineering and AI for Siri, while working alongside Steve Jobs. He later co-founded Viv Labs, which was acquired by Samsung and is now known as the company’s voice assistant Bixby. Adam was also on the founding team of Change.org, the world’s largest petition platform. Alongside Adam, Siamak led the natural language processing team for Siri at Apple and led the largest engineering team for Viv Labs at Samsung.

“A big part of what attracted us to Airbnb was our shared commitment to using AI to enable human connection,” said Adam Cheyer, co-founder and CEO of GamePlanner.AI. “Like Brian, I believe that without great design and community-based intelligence, AI can only achieve a fraction of its potential. But with them, the sky’s the limit. The Airbnb team understands this better than anyone.”

Its Confirmed, AirBnB Invests in OYO's Series E Funding Round

US-based home renting startup AirBnB has reportedly picked up a stake in Oyo Rooms. In a series E funding whose details are undisclosed, AirBnB has invested in the Indian hospitality startup valued at more than USD 1 Billion.

The investment, which is being touted at around $150-200 million, has been confirmed by Maninder Gulati, Global Chief Strategy Officer at OYO Hotels & Homes to a business daily.

“As the 6th largest hotel chain operator in the world, we at, OYO Hotels & Homes, are committed to offering our guests and travelers around the world, great quality living spaces. We are happy to have Airbnb as our partner in this vision," said Gulati to BusinessInsider.in.

IndianWeb2 first reported about the possibility of AirBnB's strategic investment in Ola, in last month.

As part of this strategic investment, Oyo’s listings will appear on the Airbnb platform, thereby increasing Oyo’s international presence and also strengthening Airbnb’s presence in the Asian markets. The Oyo-Airbnb deal will open up Oyo’s 10,000 homes and villas listings on Airbnb in India, Dubai and a few other markets.

"Emerging markets like India and China are some of Airbnb’s fastest-growing, with our growth increasingly powered by tourism to and from these markets. Airbnb will look at ways to make Oyo listings available on its platform, the San Franciso-based firm said," said Greg Greeley, president of homes at Airbnb.

The Oyo-Airbnb deal comes just a few weeks after Airbnb bought HotelTonight, an app for finding hotel rooms at a discount, ahead of an initial public offering (IPO).

In June last year, in what could be called as first business partnership in India with a booking site controller for accommodations, AirBnB partnered with AxisRooms, a Bangalore-based travel distribution solutions provider for hotels and accommodations, which is backed by Seedfund, a Vietnam-based investment advisory and consulting firm.

In 2017, AirBnB had bought Trooly, a California-based background-check startup founded by three Indian-origin entrepreneurs -- Anish Das Sarma, Savi Baveja and Nilesh Dalvi. The acquisition was aimed at to protect AirBnB users and hosts from undesirable and fraudulent people. Notably, Airbnb was also a Trooly customer since 2015.

Source - LiveMint

Bangalore-based AxisRooms Ties Up with Airbnb to Boost Real-Time Availability of India-based Airbnb Accommodations

AxisRooms, India’s leading travel distribution solutions provider for hotels and accommodations is working with Airbnb, the World's largest community-driven hospitality company. This association is aimed to provide a level-playing field to travel accommodations other than commercial Hotels and Resorts.

The AxisRooms – Airbnb tie-up is Airbnb’s first business partnership in India with a booking site controller for accommodations. This tie-up will automate the real time availability and dynamic pricing for Airbnb accommodations based in India. The partnership will also cover existing AxisRooms Homestay, Bed & Breakfast clients.

Founded by Anil Kumar Prasanna, Ravi Taneja and Leema Rosali in 2011, AxisRooms is a technology-based channel management system that helps hoteliers improve their distribution, both for online and offline channels. Whether it is getting adequate exposure for the property or allocating the correct price for rooms in time, AxisRooms’s single dashboard gives hoteliers a seamless experience in inventory management. Using this, hotels have a better visibility of the demand and are able to serve guests better. Currently, it has 6500+ hotels on its platform spread across 20+ countries including brands like CGH Earth, Leisure Hotels, OYO Rooms, FabHotels, Keys Hotels, Park Regis, ITC WelcomeHeritage etc. It is backed by Seedfund, India's leading early-stage venture capital fund.

The collaboration is set to transform numerous aspects of alternative hospitality industry and improving its ranking and importance by providing a fine-tuned content and specific marketing and sales channel for various types of accommodations.

Airbnb will get real time accommodation availability information and content through AxisRooms platform, which will grow the content listing and transactions on Airbnb. AxisRooms being Data Driven & working on automated pricing technology for accommodation partners, has already implemented this in the hotel segment with huge success and will now leverage this knowledge and its platform to evolve the distribution and value addition to the vacation rental accommodations like Villas, Homestay and BnB's.

As a market leader in India, with 6000+ hotels, AxisRooms has a decent demand from accommodations providers, who are using its various platforms like Channel Manager, Revenue Management system, Web Booking Engine, Rate Shopping platform, etc. It has a few additional service platforms as well, such as Hotel Extranet for emerging OTA, Travel Agent & Corporate hotel contracting and booking module.

Delighted with the partnership, Mr. Anil Kumar Prasanna, CEO, AxisRooms opined, “We are elated to announce this alliance and happy to share that our association will have an enormous impact on the alternative travel accommodation industry. AxisRooms and Airbnb are two entities who would be working together in India, for a common goal tailored to provide a tuned content, to give a specific marketing and sales channels for alternative travel accommodations."

Further, AxisRooms is planning to add 18000+ hotel/accommodation partners in India to use their platform and also expects a surge of 50% in their customer base, which will use its real-time data analytics and revenue management systems. For the International Market predominantly, it is set to expand their operations in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Maldives, and UAE & Indonesia with the addition of 5000+ hotels.

Airbnb is Buying A Startup Founded by 3 Indian Origin Entrepreneurs

California-based online lodging service firm AirBnB, from whom India's Oyo copied the business model, is on verge of buying an another California-based background-check startup -- Trooly, founded by three Indian-origin entrepreneurs in 2014 as it seeks to protect its users and hosts from undesirable and fraudulent people. Notably, Airbnb has reportedly been a Trooly customer since 2015.

A report in Fortune magazine said Airbnb is buying Trooly, a small startup that specializes in technology that helps conduct background checks.

Founded in 2014 by Anish Das Sarma, Savi Baveja and Nilesh Dalvi, Trooly uses machine learning technology to verify, screen and predict trustworthy relationships and interactions for businesses. The startup had raised $10 million in funding in 2016, according to venture capital tracking site Crunchbase.

Savi Baveja, who is also the company’s CEO, had previously served as senior partner at the strategy consulting firm Bain & Company, and a member of the Bain Board of Directors.

Anish Das Sarma, the company’s Chief Technology Officer, is a gold medalist from IIT-Bombay and has worked at Google Research and Yahoo Research. Nilesh Dalvi, Trooly's Chief Science Officer, is too an IIT-Bombay alumnus and has worked at Facebook and Yahoo Research.

"We look forward to welcoming the Trooly team to Airbnb in the coming weeks,” the Airbnb spokesperson said. "We'll continue working together to better facilitate trust between strangers on, off and across the platform – supporting Airbnb’s overall strategy to create a world where anyone can belong anywhere."