SaaS startup Hotelchamp secures €1.75M seed investment

It’s a good day for Amsterdam-based startup Hotelchamp. The SaaS-startup that helps hotels to obtain more bookings directly through their respective websites received almost two million euros in their first round of funding. A breakfast of champions might be in order.

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Personal environment

A lot of hotels obtain new bookings through big aggregator hotel websites, but Hotelchamp aims to give some power back to the hotels themselves. Hotelchamp’s technology personalizes hotel websites in real-time based on visitor behavior, making it easier for hotels to encourage possible customers to book a room directly. This offers advantages to both hotel and their guests, explains CEO and founder Kristian Valk: “Hotels become less dependent on the large booking websites by using our software on their own websites. They will have direct contact with their hotel guests, which makes the entire booking process a lot more personal.”

Hotels pay Hotelchamp a fixed amount each month to use its software. The amount depends on the number of rooms they have on offer. Hotels are not required to pay Hotelchamp any fees or commissions for bookings, like they have to do with the existing booking platforms.

Carefully selected investors

The seed investment comes from the founders along with a team of carefully selected angel investors, including a group of entrepreneurs from the hotel- and e-commerce-industry. Founding partner Investion Venture Capital brings specific expertise and experience in the field of startup acceleration, which helped Hotelchamp to realise its growth in such a short amount of time. Valk: “We specifically went looking for a perfect team of investors, consisting of thoroughly experienced experts in fields such as hospitality, e-commerce, media and finance. The fact that we also have three investors from the hotel industry proves that Hotelchamp is catering to an urgent demand in the hospitality industry.”

Massive chains worldwide

Hotelchamp’s technology is already being used by hotels around the world. Most recently Millennium Hotels signed up to Hotelchamp. This hotel chain has 120 hotels in 79 different cities in Europe, Asia, the United States, the Middle East and New Zealand. Other chains and renowned names, like the Pallazzo Versace in Dubai, the Baros luxury Maldives Resort, Amber Hotels in Germany, as well as Bilderberg Hotels and WestCord Hotels in the Netherlands.