Lodgify’s U.S. Success Story
How this SMB from Spain in the Information Technology and Services industry made it in the U.S.A
Country Of Origin Spain
U.S. HQ. Boston, USA
Industry Information Technology and Services
Year Founded 2013
Number Of Employees About 40
Annual revenue $2.7M (estimate)
About Lodgify
Lodgify is a Barcelona-based travel technology company that focuses on developing innovative software for the hospitality industry. The company was launched in 2013. Since inception, the company’s technology has proven very useful to vacation rental owners and managers. Notably, that technology makes it easy to create their own accommodation website and accept online bookings. In addition, Lodgify users can manage all reservations from any place at any time. For the future, the company intends to empower hospitality businesses with technology and help them become less dependent on commission-based listing sites.
The US Expansion
After several years of operation, the company started making expansion moves to more countries with a large potential market. That saw the company advance its technology beyond the direct channel. The company also dedicated funds to building deep connectivity to the largest booking portals such as its API integrations with Booking.com and Airbnb. Currently, Lodgify’s multi-channel platform provides seamless and advanced connections. Consequently, it becomes easier for lodging operators to start their business and receive bookings from either external or their websites.
In its expansion plan, the company looked forward to acquiring a new financing round that would be used to expand in Europe and the USA. After the launch of its offices in Boston, USA, the company witnessed a rapidly growing customer base. Additionally, there was a high volume of booking transactions and great market momentum.
With their expansion in the US market, the platform stated playing a very essential role in the vacation space. Most people started viewing the company as a B2B solution for small operators and individuals that wish to commercialize their own properties. Users were able to create websites for their properties. In addition, people started managing their reservations in real-time without paying commission.
At present, Lodgify offers scalable subscription plans based on a monthly fee. That is for both vacation rental owners and managers with more than 500 properties. To make the platform better, Lodgify includes friendly website templates on an online booking engine, reservation system, and channel manager. The software that the Lodgify team has created enables easy use of reservation and online booking. A user can run their small accommodation-for-hire business ventures at the same level of professionalism and scale as a major hotel chain.
Chris Hitchen, a lead investor, noted how the company’s technology will influence the operation of the hospitality business. At is it now, Lodgify’s technology-¬focused approach is to tackle the vacation rental industry’s challenge and generate additional direct bookings. The company’s intuitive user interface and set of innovative software tools positions it in a lucrative and growing market. Fortunately, the US market has been a perfect selling venue for the company since the expansion to the US.
There are opportunities to move beyond targeting just vacation rentals in the US. Furthermore, there are chances that will allow businesses like small independent hotels to utilize the Lodgify platform. Nonetheless, Klett said that the company has a clear focus on what they are working on now. If the company utilizes its versatile and scalable product, it may see itself tapping into the independent US hotels market in the near future.
Financing the US Expansion
At present, Lodgify’s main financiers include Nauta Capital, Chris Hitchen, HOWZAT Partners, Venrex, Roland Zeller and Kilian Thalhammer. Since formation, the Barcelona startup has raised €6.2 million to date In April 2016, the company raised 1.4 million Euros in a round of financing led by Nauta Capital. The other investors also participated in the round. This round brought the total funding to 2 million Euros. With these funds, the company will accelerate product development as well as Europe and US expansions. Moreover, sales and marketing utilized a sufficient fraction of the funds.
In July 2018, Lodgify closed €4.25M Series A to expand vacation rental SaaS platform. That particular funding round was from Nauta Capital, HOWZAT Partners, Business Angels, and Intermedia Vermögensverwaltung. With the funds, the vacation rental SaaS platform embarked on expanding its team. Some funds were used to boost its product development department to ensure that the US market would be content with the service.
The €4.25M Series A investment was intended to drive Lodgify’s growth by expanding their team. Particularly, the company aimed at expanding the product development department. This would allow Lodgify to develop new features at an even quicker pace. That would be in line with the company’s overall plans for the coming years. As established, the funds will be used to further enhance the company’s website-building software. Most funds will go towards expanding the product team and creating additional features on the site that will be unveiled later.
Sources
Note: This company is not a client of, or associated in any other way with, Mount Bonnell Advisors, or has been involved in this publication. This content has been produced using the following information sources in the public domain: