What a week for German start-ups offering a peer-to-peer marketplace for experiences and accommodations: in one week, two investments done in two German Airbnb sisters!

The 11th of January, 9flats.com, the German Airbnb, announced that is has completed a multi-million Euro funding round led by T-Venture (the corporate fund of Deutsche Telekom AG). The same week, TechCrunch EU revealed that Ashton Kutcher, Sunstone Capital, Index Ventures, Werner Vogels (of Amazon) and Peter Read invested $1.4 million seed capital in Gidsy, a start-up which let you “instantly book activities organized by real people”. And, as a comparison, last summer, Wimdu, another German Airbnb, completed an investment round of €71 million.

Needless to say that investors think there is a real marketplace for peer-to-peer experience & accomodation, and that German startups seem to have a good strategy to seize this opportunity.

Let’s focus on 9flats.com. The star-up has grown rapidly: created in February 2011, in Hamburg, 9flats.com offers more that 20,000 properties worldwide. Last week, the “oldest” twin-sister of Airbnb has not only completed a multi-million Euro funding round which includes Redpoint Ventures (California) and eVenture Capital Partners (Hamburg). They are also entering into a partnership with ImmobilienScout24, the German largest real estate online marketplace. The new funding round will boost the international expansion to 9flats.com, and the partnership with ImmobilienScout24 will enable it to significantly expand its audience. As the marketplace for peer-to-peer accommodation is not mainstream yet, 9flats.com gained a great competitive advantage last week, in its partnership with ImmobilienScout24.

Wimdu, founded in March 2011 in Berlin, proposes more that 35,000 properties worldwide. Its investment round last summer (€71 million) was the highest investment round in IT-German-start-ups last year. Its rapid growth has probably convinced its direct competitor, 9flats.com, to move its office from Hamburg to Berlin.

Gidsy, created the 2nd November 2011, opened in its native Berlin, and has expanded to New York and Amsterdam. Gidsy is based on a slightly different concept. It enables anyone sell its own activities. Let’s say you are a student living in Amsterdam and specialized in painting history. You can go on Gidsy and offer a guided tour of the Rijksmuseum. Listing your event is free, but Gidsy takes 10% fee from each booking.