Barcelona Startups Kigo and Hotel Ninjas Get Acquired On The Same Day

Yesterday was payday in Barcelona for two homegrown startups in the fast-paced vacation rental and hotel management software space. The rumors were swirling two weeks ago of a Kigo acquisition by RealPage, the US software company that also recently snatched up Instamanager.  The announcement was made official yesterday when RealPages dropped $32 million to become the proud new owner of one of the fastest growing vacation rental software firm in the land.

RealPage acquires vacation rental technology provider Kigo for $32M

It was a bit of a surprise when Hotel Ninjas announced the finalization of their acquisition by Priceline in May. Although they’ve only been around scarcely two years, Priceline, the firm behind Booking.com and Kayak platforms, must have liked what they saw under the hood since Hotel Ninjas is not accepting new customers until they launch the next version of their product.

Priceline Group buys HotelNinjas, adding more services to its new hotel tech jigsaw

The same-day announcement of the two Barcelona companies was purely coincidence, but it speaks to the larger global trend of consolidation in the hotel and vacation rental software industry. The larger players (Priceline) are clearly trying to maintain their competitive advantage by snatching up early stage startups like Hotel Ninjas and Buuteeq before they get too expensive. The Open Table acquisition not withstanding. For the Kigo transaction, it’s a full-on sprint for marketshare in the increasingly busy vacation rental software game and Kigo has been on a tear!

For everyone else in this industry, pop the champagne. Acquisitions rarely go as planned and usually they mean less competition and more opportunity for the other players. Here’s lookin’ at you @Vreasy and @Lodgify!