HotelRunner, the fast-growing global hospitality and travel technology provider, announced today the closing of their $6.5 million Series A round. New and existing investors including 212, Wix Capital, Founders Factory, Ascension Ventures, DHM, and a series of travel and technology veterans and angel investors who also joined the advisory board of the company, Gerry Samuels, Melih Odemis, Daniel King, and Niels Gron participated in the round.
HotelRunner underpins the world’s hospitality industry with its unified sales, operations, and distribution management platform, AI-driven business intelligence solutions, and market network. Expanding over the globe in 193 countries and with thousands of clients, HotelRunner enables properties, whether resort hotels or independent properties and vacation rentals, to run full-scale digital operations, while its B2B network allows its partners to find, connect, and transact with each other online at scale, processing more than 35 million transactions daily between properties, travel agencies, travelers, and payment gateways.
Headquartered in London, HotelRunner has already become an acknowledged success story with over 100 team members in five cities and three countries, growing fast despite the turmoil in the hospitality industry and global markets. With the ambition of democratizing the usage of technology for hospitality and travel businesses in every corner of the world, HotelRunner continues to be a profitable company thanks to its agility, and adaptive technology providing sustainable growth opportunities for its partners.
This $6.5 million financing will be directed towards continuing to build a solid presence in offline markets, growing the team, and investing heavily in delivering state-of-the-art technology. HotelRunner plans to continue its global expansion, inaugurating the new offices in the Americas in the coming months, which will unlock the potential to bring scalable and low-cost growth opportunities for the hospitality industry in the US and LATAM. Having made two acquisitions in the past, the company also has eyes on consolidating the fragmented travel technology industry in different markets by continuing its acquisitions spree.
“Since the day we founded HotelRunner, we draw our strength from our conquering technology and trailblazing persona, and work with the sole ambition of moving our partners and the industry forward, also preparing them for the future,” said Arden Agopyan, Founder and Managing Partner of HotelRunner. “This funding will provide us with the extra means to significantly further our efforts to realize our mission of offering a global networked marketplace where all travel industry players can participate fairly, and trade seamlessly with each other”.
“We take pride in being the trusted technology and sales partner that has been shaping the outlook of the industry for over a decade with our power to adapt quickly in turbulent environments. Raising this capital is the pure validation of HotelRunner’s recession-proof growth model,” added Ali Beklen, Founder and Managing Partner of HotelRunner. “We will further excel our pioneering platform and continue building a bigger travel economy for every player in the global ecosystem”.
“We take great pleasure in partnering with companies inventing technologies and business models transforming the industries globally,” said Numan Numan, Founding Partner of 212. “HotelRunner has always had a passion for growing the travel economy and democratizing the usage of technology, which is why we have supported Ali and Arden throughout their entire journey since the inception of the company. Witnessing what they have achieved so far, we can’t help but get excited about the potential HotelRunner promises to the entire world”.
“Wix’s partnership with HotelRunner is another step in creating the go-to solution for businesses to manage their operations and grow efficiently,” said Darya Fuks, Head of Corporate Development at Wix.
Last June, HotelRunner and Wix announced a strategic partnership and combined Wix’s comprehensive online platform with HotelRunner’s end-to-end travel technology offering a complete solution for all types of accommodations to manage and grow their hospitality business online.
