Barcelona startup Lodgify has announced today the closing of a €600,000 seed investment to become the “Shopify of the vacation rental industry.” The round was led by angel investor Chris Hitchen, HOWZAT Partners, Venrex Investment Management and other notable angel investors including Roland Zeller, former CEO of travel.ch and Kilian Thalhammer, former managing director of Rocket Internet startup PAYMILL. These experienced investors will help the promising Seedcamp alumnus continue its rapid growth across the US and Europe since launching their SaaS product in 2013. In the last two years, Lodgify has created a software that allows vacation rental owners to build turnkey websites that drive new bookings and manages reservations in real-time without paying commission.
“Lodgify’s mission is to empower vacation rental operators to grow their business through technology,” says Dennis Klett, cofounder of Lodgify. “Our product pipeline is filled with innovative features and new website templates tailored to the modern needs of hospitality businesses. With this funding we can aggressively expand our product development operations.”
Klett has said the new funding will go directly into improving its product, expanding their current team and announcing new features. As a versitle SaaS solution, Lodgify anticipates expanding it’s footprint into the hotel market in the future as well.
“Our focus is on vacation rentals, however, we are receiving a lot of interest from hoteliers who would like to challenge the dominant position of Online Travel Agencies and regain more control of their bookings,” says Klett. “They see the potential of our software helping them to drive direct bookings and build their own brand.”
The Lodgify Team (from L to R): Dennis Klett, Marco De Gregorio, Naveen Sharma and Gabriele De Gregorio.
They have to make sure what they are investing is worthy.