12. Love Home Swap

Founder: Debbie Wosskow
Founded: October 2011
Website: www.lovehomeswap.com

Since making our 2013 list, serial entrepreneur and investor Debbie Wosskow’s holiday home-swapping service Love Home Swap has seen a real surge in growth. Differentiating itself from the standard peer-to-peer rental model used by its competitors, Love Home Swap offers users the option to swap and rent properties as well as using its unique points system to earn credits for allowing people to stay in your home whilst you’re away (points can be cashed in to rent properties for free). Capitalising on its USP – the site has grown its index to 54,000 luxury homes in more than 150 countries across the globe – six times as many as at the start of 2013. Through Love Home Swap’s service, members save an average of £2,202 on hotel bills per trip, so this expanding popularity should come as no surprise.

Backed by a total of £2.7m funding (as well as the recent acquisition of a leading competitor 1stHomeExchange) and with exponentially increasing turnover, Woskow plans to go head-to-head with US competitor Airbnb across 2014, growing the site’s userbase to more than 100,000 members and firmly establishing Love Home Swap as the world’s largest online travel club.