Selfbook, a startup in the hotel payment software sector, recently announced that it has raised $25 million in a Series A round of funding headed by Tiger World Management.
Early Stripe employees turned traders Lachy Groom and Valia Ventures, Fin Venture Funds, and “strategic” angel investors also took part in the investment, which valued the company at $125 million and increased its overall funding to $30 million as per b2bann azevedotechcrunch.
According to Khalid Meniri, co-founder and CEO of Selfbook, the valuation marks a nearly “16x” rise over the company’s valuation when it raised a $2 million seed round in the previous quarter. In this most recent round, investors from companies including Greater Tomorrow Ventures, Abstract Ventures, TenOneTen Ventures, and 9Yards Cash also took part “with amazing pro rata.”
Selfbook claims that its software gives hotels a mechanism to accept “one-click” payments directly on their websites while eradicating fraud and reducing chargebacks.
Selfbook, a New York-based company, describes itself as the “Shopify for travel,” and claims to operate at the intersection of hospitality and fintech. Selfbook was founded in September 2020 as a pivot from a customer journey application to a B2B business. According to Meniri, lodges may immediately improve their booking experiences on their current reservation platforms by implementing its engineering “with a single line of code.”
Selfbook began operations with just one hotel in April and has since secured contracts for around 90 establishments, with 15 of them now having missing guests. Over the previous six months, the business has observed a “10x” increase in the number of Selfbook end customers using one indicator-on and digital wallets. Additionally, digital wallets for mobile devices were used to create 67% of bookings.
According to Selfbook, its service is the only payment option for hotels that supports the usage of digital wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, and buy now, pay later. Additionally, it accepts payments using widely used debit and credit cards. Meniri claims that Selfbook’s software also offers fast scheduling inbound connections and shrewd merchandising in addition to enabling “one-click” payment.
The software can also combine numerous services, such as restaurant reservations, spa appointments, and things to do, into a “one payment movement,” which the company claims can lead to more upsells for the hotels and, as a result, increase earnings.
Selfbook now employs 50 full-time staff members, up from just four at the beginning of the year. It plans to use its additional resources to expand collaborations with financial companies and current hospitality systems, as well as to hire more people.
Using its 6 Travel app, Selfbook previously operated as a B2C company that allowed hotel guests to make reservations at about 3,000 hotels. To support these bookings, the company developed its own “modern” transaction software after realizing that there were no existing API partners with a straightforward hotel scheduling function in the market.
Meniri told TechCrunch, “When the pandemic struck and significantly affected the hospitality business, we decided to democratize our unique payment and transaction motor and enhance the instant hotel reservation system for everyone. To help the hotel business more easily recover from the negative impacts of the epidemic, “We relaunched as Selfbook to give our payment option, particularly to hotels.”
According to Tiger World spouse Alex Dinner, Selfbook is not only modernizing the hotel scheduling procedure, but it also has the potential to improve the scheduling experience for customers and increase conversion for hotel operators. data based on selfbook series 125m b2bann azevedotechcrunch.
Selfbook also seeks to remedy a really genuine pain position for merchant Groom, the previous chief of Stripe issuing.
Anyone who has made a hotel reservation online is aware of how inadequate the system of payments in the hospitality industry is, he asserted in a statement. Selfbook is easy to use and unquestionably the way of the future.
Aspect is aware: Soon after scheduling a resort previously this calendar year as a result of a third-celebration company and possessing a nightmare practical experience to just terminate the reservation, I can enjoy the want for this kind of know-how. It was stunning to me that it was so challenging and demanding. So anything that can make specifically reserving with a resort much more convenient and safer, I’m all for it.
Faq’s
$25 million
$125 million
Tiger Global
Series A
Khalid Meniri