Mews Raises $110 Million at $1.2 Billion Valuation: Hotel Tech Play

04.03.2024 - 16:23 / skift.com / Sean Oneill / Richard Valtr

Mews has raised $110 million at a $1.2 billion valuation, the hotel tech startup said Monday.

Kinnevik, Europe’s largest publicly listed startup investor, led the round. Existing investors Revaia, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and Notion Capital also participated. LGVP became a new investor. 

“We are incredibly so bullish about how, in the age of AI, hospitality can become one of the biggest industries in the world, and how technology can be used to make every hotel more profitable, every guest happier, and bring back the pride with which one would call themselves a hotelier,” said Mews founder Richard Valtr in a LinkedIn post.

Mews sells cloud-based software used by “5,000 hospitality brands in 85 countries.”

It said it recently hit $100 million in annualized net revenue and that it processed $8 billion in gross transactions on behalf of hotels last year.

The company faces rivals on all sides, including the sector leader Oracle Hospitality and other players, such as Apaleo, Cloudbeds, and Agilysys. Some public companies, such as Amadeus, have similar or overlapping products.

Mews raised $185 million in late 2022. Both rounds were closed despite a broad struggle for venture-backed startups of all kinds to receive follow-on rounds because of dislocations created by a recent spike in interest rates.

Investors believe hotel software has hit a pivotal point as hoteliers switch from on-premise products to cloud-based tools meant to interact with other software and provide more dynamic selling opportunities for upsells and ancillaries. Former heavy sales and install cycles with large up-front payments are being replaced by software that’s relatively lightweight to install and billed essentially on a monthly basis.

“In the short period of time since our initial investment, Mews has outperformed our expectations as it moved into new geographies and segments,” said Akhil Chainwala, Investment Director at Kinnevik.

For more context, read: Why European Investing Giant Kinnevik Is Betting on Travel Startups and Why This Hybrid Hospitality Brand Ripped Out Its Tech Stack.