Denver Emerges as Travel Tech's Hot New Hub
Skift Take
Technology clusters are hard to build, and make startups' lives easier when they happen. The CEO of a new company doing tech for Airbnb owners says he left San Francisco because he's found one in the Rockies. He's not alone.
Travel Tech Briefing
Editor’s Note: Exclusive reporting on technology’s impact on the travel industry, delivered every Thursday. The briefing will guide executives as they decide if their companies should “build, buy, or partner” to stay ahead.On paper, Justin Miller was a man sitting right where he belonged. He and his partners had sold Pillow, a San Francisco startup that managed short-term rentals sold over Airbnb and sites like VRBO, to Expedia, and Miller wanted to do something like it again. Airbnb was right there in the South of Market district, practically down the street. Easy, right?
So why is the 34-year old sitting 1,250 miles away in Denver?
The answer, he says, is that his new company, Showplace, will benefit from what he sees as the emergence of a small technology cluster for travel tech companies, many of them focused on short-term rental properties, in the Rocky Mountains. The first was Exclusive Resorts LLC, now 20 years old, and the biggest startup is likely closely held Evolve, which has raised $224.2 million in venture capital but doesn't disclose its sales and earnings publicly. There's AirDNA, which does business analytics for investors in short-term rental properties and was sold to a private equity firm in March, and Inspirato, a luxury vacation club that went public through a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, in February.
And now there is Showplace, which raised $2 million in venture capital in a deal announced on June 7. The so-called seed round, the earliest stage of venture capital, will let Sho
