- BGF Ventures lead series B funding round
- Working in partnership with over 17,000 hotels
- Triptease has delivered over $1 billion worth of direct booking revenue to hotels
- Independent hotels see direct bookings increased by 20%
London, 6 April 2017
Triptease, a travel SaaS start-up that provides a platform to hotels seeking to increase direct bookings, has raised $9 million in Series B funding. The funding round was led by new investor BGF Ventures, with participation from existing investors Notion Capital and Episode 1 Ventures.
Alongside further product development, Triptease will use the money raised to continue their rapid growth and international expansion into Asia by opening a new office in Singapore. The company will also double headcount in their current London and New York offices.
Triptease provides a data-driven software-platform to hotels looking to increase their online conversion rate in the face of intense competition from online travel agencies (OTAs).The drive for direct bookings is the single biggest priority of the hotel industry, with commissions paid to OTAs often reaching 20% or more.
The Triptease Direct Booking Platform integrates with a hotel’s current website and booking engine. Tracking millions of consumer booking journeys across thousands of hotel websites, Triptease brings conversion optimisation to each individual hotel website. The result is a smoother booking process and 20% more people booking direct on a hotel website.
Charlie Osmond, founder and Chief Tease at Triptease, explains the company’s mission: “We want to shift the world to direct bookings. A direct relationship with customers reduces a hotel’s spend on middleman commissions whilst allowing them to offer cutting-edge services like mobile check-in alongside ancillary upsells. Savvy consumers have also started to realise hotels prefer guests who book direct. Room upgrades and special incentives have become commonplace benefits for booking direct.”
“There is nothing that a hotel can do today that has a bigger, more immediate impact on direct bookings than implementing the Triptease Direct Booking Platform.”
Triptease is working with over 17,000 hotels, including major groups and independent hoteliers across Europe, the US and Asia Pacific. Annually, Triptease’s platform delivers over $1 billion worth of direct booking revenue to hotels, while the company’s own revenue has grown by 1000% over the last six quarters.
Rory Stirling, partner at BGF Ventures, said: “We are very excited to be joining Triptease as a new investor at a time when the company is showing great growth in the markets where it has established a presence. Now it’s time to expand the software to Asian hotels, to make this a truly global product. With consolidation amongst online travel agencies, hotels are increasingly looking for options to help them mobilise people to their own websites and Triptease is the best in its sector.”
Central to Triptease’s unique proposition is the sheer scale of its data advantage. By signing up to the Triptease platform, hotels with only a few thousand web visitors a month can learn from the millions of user sessions the company is tracking across the industry. Triptease’s industry-leading position – the company has around 10 times the number of customers as any of its competitors – is consolidated by the ability to learn and develop faster than similar companies due to that vast data advantage.
Chris Tottman, partner at Notion Capital, said: “The Triptease platform is extremely robust at delivering direct bookings for hotels today, but this investment also will allow Triptease to accelerate improvements to the product. New products and features will make hotels who use Triptease increasingly more competitive and data rich.”
Triptease aims not only to provide the best product on the market, but also to lead the Direct Booking movement. These efforts are spearheaded by the company’s hugely successful Direct Booking Summits, as well as original research derived from data collected by the Platform. Charlie Osmond explains: “We have an important educational role to play in the market. We’re here to help hotels improve their digital savvy, and we will continue to wave the flag for direct bookings. We also need this money to keep up with the crazy demand for our Direct is Best socks.”
Contact: sayula@burlington.cc
About Triptease
Triptease (www.triptease.com) is a travel SaaS company that builds digital tools that create better experiences and relationships between hotels and guests. When hotels employ Triptease, travellers can compare prices in real time. The Triptease platform also gives hotels tools to finetune their prices, personalise messages to travellers and engage customers through recommendations, resulting in a significant improvement in direct booking.
The company was co-founded by Charlie Osmond, UK Young Entrepreneur of the Year and former member of The British Airways Business Advisory Board; Alasdair Snow, named in TTG’s Tomorrow’s Travel Leaders 30 under 30, and Alexandra Zubko, former Head of Strategy at Intercontinental Hotels Group and winner of IHIF Young Person Leader Award.
