Copenhagen-based BeCause, a startup transforming how the hospitality, travel, and tourism industries manage their sustainability data, announced on Wednesday that it has raised $450K (approximately €415,539) in a fresh round of funding.
The investment came from renowned Danish entrepreneurs-turned-investors Carsten Mahler and Daniel Heskia. The funding was made through Prolab Holding, an entity held by Mahler and Heskia.
Mahler says, “We see the potential impact of BeCause’s sustainability data management hub can have on businesses, and we believe in their unique approach to applying these principles to sustainability.”
“We are excited to join Frederik and his team on this journey and provide guidance and support to help them achieve their profit with a purpose-driven goal. We have been impressed by the team.”
Other investors include Innovation Fund Denmark, Alchemist Accelerator, the Copenhagen School of Entrepreneurship, Vækstfonden, and Corde Invest.
Helping companies manage sustainability
Founded in 2018 by Jonas Bruun Jacobsen and Frederik Rubens Steensgaard, BeCause is an enterprise software firm that makes it faster and less expensive for sustainability data to flow so that tourist companies can impact people, planet and their profits.
BeCause’s AI-powered sustainability management hub enables clients to compile and display all of their sustainability-related communications in one location, giving them the tools required to make sustainability manageable for their operations.
The company enables stakeholders to remain up to speed with the newest sustainability advancements by removing 60 per cent of the resources formerly used for repetitive and error-prone manual administrative processes. This results in a sixfold quicker return on sustainability investments.
This improvement eventually leads to a considerable boost in bottom-line profitability, which might amount to millions of dollars for a typical hotel chain in the first year alone.
Frederik Rubens Steensgaard says, “Since our founding, we’ve already attracted some of the world’s leading travel and tourism brands, including Booking.com, GreenKey, and other leading travel and tourism companies, all of whom believe in our platform’s ability to transform their approach to sustainability and are committed to providing sustainable options to travellers while improving how their companies manage their sustainability efforts more efficiently.”
The company’s sustainability data flow helps power a portion of Booking.com’s Travel Sustainable programme and works with over 11,000 businesses.
Its clients include sustainable hotels, eco-labels, certification organisations like GreenKey, industry partners like UN GSTC, and marketplaces like Booking.com.
Capital utilisation
BeCause claims that the raised funds will enable the company to expand its commercial and product development efforts with added resources and runway.
Steensgaard says, “Ineffective sustainability management is costing hotel and travel brands over $8B each year, in addition to missed revenues of at least $13B annually based on our industry estimations.”
“This early investment addresses a significant need in the industry and helps support our mission of making sustainability management simpler, faster and cheaper so that tourism companies can make a tangible impact on people, the planet and their profits.”
BeCause is also a participant in the Alchemist Accelerator with a Demo Day slated for May 30, which has traditionally drawn over 400 investors looking for high-impact opportunities.
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