Following the circulation of a press release from pk-media, a story claiming that Scottish proptech firm Letting Cloud had been acquired by US holiday rental company Airbnb began appearing throughout various news outlets, including DIGIT.

Since then, Airbnb have stated that they have no prior relationship with Letting Cloud or its owner, Scottish entrepreneur Graent MacCusker and, in comment given to Skift, said: “We have no relationship with this company, we have had no discussions with this company and we have not acquired nor do we intend to acquire this company.”

In a comment given to DIGIT, a spokesperson for Letting Cloud said: “In the wake of recent developments in various media outlets, the matter is now in the hands of our lawyers and we will not be making any further comment at this time.”

Public filings submitted to UK Companies House state that Letting Cloud has zero employees – with the exception of CEO Grant MacCusker.

The Original Story 

The press release providied to DIGIT claimed that Letting Cloud – an Edinburgh-based property portal set up by entrepreneur Grant MacCusker – has over 5,000 agents advertising over 500,000 properties in the holiday, short and long-term rental sectors throughout the UK each year.

It stated that the tech that the platform is built on was set to help Airbnb with the Scottish Government’s legislation changes surrounding short-term holiday lets as well as Westminster’s imminent clampdown on ‘party houses’.

The press release also included a supposed quote from Airbnb Director of Engineering Jordanna Kwok, saying: “We were attracted by the array of interesting problems being tackled by Letting Cloud, and how they were addressing them using modern and emerging technology.

“Whilst both companies shared similar values and market share, the technical acquisition will bring more clarity to the UK short-term and holiday rental market.

“Airbnb are continuing to thrive on solving interesting problems which will help with the recent government legislation being rolled out in Scotland and the UK.”

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The press release also contained a qupte from MacCusker, who said: “Our software behind the main website which conducts all the verification checks required to complete a successful let is what attracted Airbnb. To be honest it hasn’t really sunk in yet!

“There was a £6m seed round on the table from investors in USA and London, and another offer from a US company looking to acquire us and move into this space in the UK but I went with the Airbnb offer as it fitted in with the technology we had built.

“It’s a good fit, we share similar values and know our best work done to date will continue.”