Vacasa SPAC Deal: The 'Thing Behind The Thing' For Airbnb And Vacation Rentals

Benzinga routinely examines a stock that might be considered a little under the radar. The company may not be well-known, but chances are the line of work it’s in is pretty familiar. 

This is called the “thing behind the thing.”

A company that provides end-to-end technology solutions for the vacation rental industry is this week’s featured “Thing Behind The Thing.”

About Vacasa: North America’s leading vacation rental management platform is Vacasa. The company announced a SPAC merger with TPG Pace Solutions Corp TPGS. The deal values the company at a pro forma equity value of $4.5 billion.

The company’s marketplace offers services for the entire vacation rental ecosystem offering services for guests, homeowners and distribution partners. Vacasa offers booking services, data collection security and other services.

Vacasa works with more than 100 channel partners including Airbnb Inc ABNB, Booking Holdings Inc BKNG, Glamping.com, Tripadvisor and VRBO, owned by Expedia Group Inc EXPE. The company’s marketplace offers more than 30,000 vacation homes.

The company gets 35% of its revenue from direct vacation rentals it owns and 65% from its partnerships with large vacation rental companies.

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Growth Ahead: Vacasa sees itself as an industry disrupter similar to other sectors that saw a shift to e-commerce and companies that provide the technology infrastructure leading the way.

Airbnb and Vrbo offer more than one million U.S. homes as vacation rentals, providing room for Vacasa to grow with market share gains through its partnerships.

Vacasa currently manages less than 1% of all U.S. vacation rentals.

Vacasa manages a significant portion of Airbnb and Vrbo listings in its existing markets and has proven to create higher-performing inventory, with around 20% more in the rental income generated from properties managed by Vacasa.

Vacasa could also gain from the continued expansion of the vacation rental market, which is seeing strong growth and is estimated to hit $200 billion globally by 2022.

Financials: The company is estimating fiscal 2021 gross bookings to hit $1.6 billion and revenue to hit $750 million. Fiscal 2022 revenue is estimated to hit $1 billion.

Vacasa is forecasting revenue to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 31% from fiscal 2021 to fiscal 2023. Airbnb, which is a partner and rival, has forecasted annual revenue growth of 25% over the same time period.