Here’s another sign of the travel industry’s remarkable boom. This is a major growth round for one of the B2B startups serving just that. Lighthouse, a data analytics platform for the hotel and other hospitality industries, has closed a $370 million Series C round. The round led by KKR valued Lighthouse at more than $1 billion.
The funds will be used to continue building out more data sets, analytics tools and AI capabilities, the company said. They may also use this large injection of capital to make acquisitions to advance their business. The company has made four acquisitions to date, including one earlier this year: Stardekk, which built an all-in-one hotel software for reservation management and more.
The company is headquartered in London, making this one of the largest rounds by a London-based startup this year and one of the largest rounds in the travel sector.
For those tracking how the European startup ecosystem is currently performing, Lighthouse’s funding record is instructive. The company raised $80 million in 2021, the peak of its fundraising.
This round is an affirmation for investors that they have been doing the right thing over the past few years.
European startups have been hit by a slowdown in activity across several technology sectors, geopolitical turmoil and slowing economic growth. Lighthouse is focused on providing business intelligence to the global market (currently estimated to be worth approximately $15 trillion annually) and applying the latest technologies, such as AI, to deliver this, as data-driven businesses continue to seize opportunities. Emphasizes.
The company’s core toolset is not directly related to taking reservations or managing employees and accounts. itself. Instead, the focus is on business intelligence, specifically analytics and insights. It says it processes 400 terabytes of travel and market data every day and ‘leverages AI’ to provide insights to customers through one product aimed at large hotel chains and another aimed at smaller operations.
More than 70,000 service providers reportedly use the tool, including some big names including Holiday Inn, Radisson and NH Hotel Group.
This round is a testament to the demand among hotels for better tools to improve pricing and the overall proposition to guests at a time when there are more choices and more ways to find and book hotels than ever before.
“We’re just getting started on making hotel data and tools more powerful, accessible and affordable,” Sean Fitzpatrick, CEO of Lighthouse, said in a statement. “What we’re working on couldn’t be more powerful.” I hope to speak with him later today to hear more.
The company’s previous rounds included Spectrum Equity, F-Prime Capital, Eight Roads Ventures, and Highgate Technology Ventures, and all of these investors are also participating in this latest Series C.
