Based in Barcelona Amenitizwhich sells software as a service to streamline administration for independent hotels and bed and breakfasts that it refers to as “Shopify for Hotels,” closed a $30 million Series A a few months later. having announced a seed of $7.5 million.
The latest round is led by venture capital firm Eight Roads, with participation from Chalfen Ventures and existing investors Point-Nine, Backed and Otium Capital.
The 2018-founded SaaS maker does not disclose its valuation for the increase, but says it has expanded its property management system (PMS) SaaS offering to serve more than 4,000 properties in 37 countries, up from 3,000 in November. last.
As well as enabling day-to-day operations, such as customer management, communication and invoicing – including the Amenitiz-branded payment module – the fully integrated software platform includes a website builder and a channel manager , the letter designed to help independent hotel and house customers stay on top of several third-party platforms where their property can be advertised (eg, booking.com, Expedia, etc.).
It also connects customers to a marketplace of third-party software tools to meet any additional requirements they may have.
The new funding will be used to expand into more European markets and launch more products on its platforms, while further increasing the size of Amenitiz’s team, with a plan to grow from 150 people to around 350 by the end of this year.
Alexandre Guinefolleau, CEO of Amenitiz, told TechCrunch: “When we raised our funding round with Point-Nine, we did so with very specific goals in mind. We wanted to build our internationalization playbook with the opening of Spain and Italy, launch AmenitizPay to simplify the way our hotels manage payments and start recruiting strong leaders while scaling the team (this which we have made from 30 to 150 employees in 2021).
“With all of these boxes checked and seeing strong investor interest, we decided it would be a good time to ramp up, raise another round and continue to scale in Europe.”
Amenitiz already has a few customers for its SaaS outside the region, but France was its first target market and it will continue to focus its resources on expanding into Europe for the time being.
He notes that the region has some 700,000 hotels, bed and breakfasts and vacation rentals, 80% of which are independent properties with 50 rooms or less, meaning they belong to the independent segment targeted by Amenitiz.
“France was our first market (and the only one we focused on for the first three years). Since then, we have seen a fantastic response from Italy and Spain, which we launched in 2021 with similar acquisition metrics and initial growth,” says Guinefolleau. “The plan is to focus on Europe for now as it is one of the largest tourism markets in the world, but to expand rapidly to new continents in the coming years (the United States and Latin America as the first expansion most likely).”
With the new funding, Guinefolleau says Amenitiz is aiming to launch in the UK, Ireland, Portugal, Germany and “potentially” Greece – which he notes, together with its existing markets, make up 90% of the European tourism market. .
On the product development front, he says they will be adding more features that will continue to make hoteliers’ processes “faster and smoother.”
“Still, most notable will be our revenue management system, allowing hoteliers to automate their pricing strategy based on their past occupancy and market data,” he adds.
Amenitiz’s SaaS essentially replaces the functionality of 3-4 different providers for target independent hoteliers, centralizing all of these tools into a single platform to streamline the administrative burden.
“In Europe, most of our competitive market is made up of very local incumbent suppliers, usually country-specific or even, in some cases, region-specific,” says Guinefolleau. “In France, it would be people like Eviivo, Vega (PMS), MrB
“Overall, our biggest competitor would be cloud beds which focuses on the United States and Latin America, but offers a similar product line. »
Commenting on the Serie A increase in a statement, Lucile Cornet, Partner at Eight Roads and also now a member of the Amenitiz Board, said: “Amenitiz has shown impressive momentum despite the pandemic. This shows how a 10x better product, intuitive and easy to use, can quickly adapt to the product market in an industry that has seen very little innovation over the past few decades We are delighted to be working with Alex, Emma and Fred.