Hotelmize secures Series-B investment from Alibaba for Asia Pacific growth

Hotelmize secures Series-B investment from Alibaba for Asia Pacific growth

Demand for data-driven intelligent solutions ‘growing rapidly’

Hotel room price prediction and optimisation software developer Hotelmize has announced a Series B investment round co-led by the Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund.

The round is also being backed by Israeli-based Brilliance Ventures and will focus on growth in the Asia Pacific region.

Founded in 2016 by Dor Krubiner, Omry Litvak and Guy Levitan (pictured) Hotelmize employs over 20 people in its Tel Aviv headquarters and has sales offices in London, Bangkok, Buenos Aires, and Mallorca.

Krubiner said: “The tourism industry is one of the most-competitive industries worldwide.

“Unlike others, travel industry players are offering highly similar products, which makes it exceptionally difficult to differentiate from their competition.

“The adoption of advanced technologies as we offer at Hotelmize is a sure way for travel and tourism organisations to keep their edge.

“In the coming years, we will see travel industry players transform themselves from commercial enterprises into technology enterprises.

“The demand for advanced data-driven intelligent solutions is already growing at a rapid pace.”

Cindy Chow, executive director of the Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund, said: “The international hotel business is a huge market, and we always look for cutting-edge technology to improve industry efficiency.

“Hotelmize has proven its value to clients and the team has demonstrated strong implementation capability.

“As we come out from the current difficult situation under the effect of COVID-19, we believe that Hotelmize can contribute to the recovery of the hotel industry with its unique value proposition.

“With our fund’s investment and support, we are confident that Hotelmize can prosper in their expansion in the APAC region using Hong Kong as the headquarters.”

Hotelmize has developed technology that allows travel companies to increase their bottom-line profit through streamlining and automating procurement processes.

Inspired by algorithmic trading in global capital markets, Hotelmize’s AI-based technology monitors the fluctuations in prices of hotel rooms from the placing of a reservation through to departure and trades the rooms like algorithms trade stock in the capital markets.

To date, Hotelmize has handled over US$2 billion of reservations and has created over US$100 million worth of transactions for its customers including some of the leaders of the global tourism industry.