The company forges ahead with new growth, defining latest category in hotel marketing and sales tech
Barcelona – April 3rd, 2018. Innovative hotel technology company The Hotels Network, has today announced it has successfully closed a new funding round of $3.7M drawing in leading investors from Europe and the US to be part of its growth story. The round was led by Seaya Ventures with the participation of SeedRocket 4Founders. Existing investors include US fund NFX.
The company, which only launched three years ago, is already profitable and works with 3,000 hotels in over 50 countries, including leading brands such as Iberostar in Europe, Grupo Posadas in America and Minor Group in Asia. It boasts a globe-spanning team of specialists in hospitality, product design and consumer marketing located in Barcelona, San Francisco, Mexico City, and Bangkok. Providing hotels with the technology to increase direct bookings, The Hotels Network offers its clients a unique set of tools to add personalization to hotel websites and booking engines.
The current product offering includes a comparator of reviews and prices, a full suite of personalization options, and predictive analytics that successfully help hotels bring back direct sales, increasing website conversions and equipping them with the right software to compete for customers online. The technology has shown proven results, with clients using The Hotels Network tools reporting a significant uplift in conversion rates– some seeing as much as +42% with sizable returns.
Investors coming on board and contributing to the funding include Spanish Venture Capital Fund Seaya Ventures, the founders of Europe’s largest independent online travel agency eDreams-Odigeo, SeedRocket 4Founders Capital and US Venture firm NFX.
The Hotels Network Founder and CEO Juanjo Rodríguez, commented; “We are delighted to have secured this funding. The company started as we identified a big gap between the quality of technology used by the large online players and that of hotels themselves, so we wanted to create a product to bridge that gap.
This new investment will help us on our mission to define a new category in the hotel tech stack, focused on improving the user experience, direct bookings and revenue. With our latest product developments, we are able to assist hotels in more areas – with a strong focus on data and machine learning. We’ve found the way to transform data into revenue at scale,” he continued.
At the core of what The Hotels Network does is personalization, offering each hotel a tailored approach represented through all its products and integrations. “Each hotel has its own challenge when it comes to increasing conversions through direct bookings, so we work with our clients on a very personal level to identify the right set of tools to help them,” commented Rodríguez.
With exceptional growth over the last three years, investors have now come on board to take the company to the next phase, recognising the potential of the product to help improve the marketing funnel of any hotel, to win (or win back) customers online.
Antonio Gimenez de Cordoba, Partner at Seaya Ventures, said, “We were impressed with the team’s achievements to date. The Hotels Network is a perfect fit for us – the product is fantastic and the potential for huge growth is inevitable. Just what the hotel industry needed.”
Javier Perez-Tenessa, from SeedRocket 4Founders Capital, and Founder of eDreams-Odigeo, commented, «We have been impressed with Juanjo´s performance since THN’s inception, especially its model of strong cooperation with hotels which empowers suppliers.»
Mauricio Prieto, Co-Founder of eDreams-Odigeo joined the company’s board after following its evolution over the past two years. He said, “I followed The Hotels Network closely as I believed its approach was unique and would bring extraordinary value to hotel groups and independent hotels around the world. I am thrilled to have joined the board as we grow the company and its product offering.”
James Currier, Managing Partner at NFX, who has been with The Hotels Network since its inception, added “I met Juanjo in the US three years ago and was instantly captivated by his vision. The hospitality industry badly needs an alternative to the growing power of the major online travel agencies, and The Hotels Network is the best one out there, building network effects within a very fragmented industry.”
