Amsterdam-based Katanox raises €5.48M; appoints former MD of Google Travel as non-executive director

Amsterdam-based Katanox, a company that facilitates the distribution of travel accommodation inventory and payments, announced on Thursday that it has raised $5.7M (approximately €5.48M) from a group of financial, hospitality, and tech entrepreneur family offices.

The group of investors includes Rappi and Yuno co-founder Juan Pablo Ortega, co-founder of fintech Dimebox and current co-founder and CEO of Founda, Jan Joost Kalff, and founder of hospitality tech iTesso, Bas Blommaart.

“Katanox makes selling hotel rooms effortless”

Founded in 2019 by Georgios Georgiadis, Paul Beukers, Imre Vogelezang, and Mendel Senf, Katanox is a travel accommodation distribution and fintech platform that brings together travel sellers and travel accommodation providers. The platform aims to unlock the programmatic era for B2B distribution in hospitality.

Mendel Senf says, “Out of necessity, we’ve seen many advancements and improvements in the travel sector spurred on by technology and digitalisation. However, when it comes to lodging, it’s the safe middle-men who are controlling the market and stifling growth. We’re bringing much-needed change to the market by putting power back in the hands of accommodation providers by empowering them to control their own destination via the Katanox platform.”

With Katanox, travel sellers like Travel Management Companies (TMC) can assemble an end-to-end experience for their corporate clients by giving them data streaming access and availability to directly search, book, pay, and modify their booking at any time. 

Katanox says it will also introduce financial services like price freeze, travel now pay later, cancel/change fees as new revenue opportunities to both partners in the platform.

Capital utilisation

Katanox says that the funds will help expand the company internationally and further develop its platform and integrations with Central Reservation Systems (CRS), Property Management Systems (PMS), and Payment Service Providers (PSP).

With its base in Amsterdam, the company says it has extensive hiring plans in engineering, business development and sales. Currently, Katanox’s team is spread over the globe from Amsterdam to London, Paris, Istanbul, Los Angeles, and Mexico City.

Appointment of a new non-executive director

Besides the funding, Katanox has also appointed industry veteran Rob Torres as a non-executive director. Torres is the former MD of Google Travel and current executive at Expedia, and brings over 20 years of experience and his vast travel industry network to the company. He will work with the founding team to partner with global hotel brands.

Rob Torres says, “I am very excited to grow my relationship with the team and apply best practices from the programmatic advertising industry for B2B distribution in hospitality. The Katanox team is building an intriguing set of solutions to bring transparency that’s needed for the open distribution era.”