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HotelTonight, the startup that allows users to discover and reserve same-day hotel rooms from their smartphones, is announcing that it’s raised $45 million in Series D financing.
The round was led by hedge fund Coatue Management, with involvement from new investor GGV Capital and previous backers Battery Ventures, Accel Partners, United States Venture Partners, and Preliminary Capital. HotelTonight has actually now raised a total amount of $80.35 million.
The company states that given that it announced its Series C in June of last year, it’s actually doubled downloads to even more than 6.5 million, added more cities (it now includes hotels in almost 120 places across 12 nations), and doubled its headcount to even more than 100 staff members too.
The development, as well as the huge brand-new round, suggests that HotelTonight has actually proven there’s there’s interest in the idea beyond wealthy techies in San Francisco and New york city. Co-founder and CEO Sam Shank said that’s also evident in a few of the marketplaces where HotelTonight is growing the most quickly, such as smaller cities in the United States Southeast. He likewise said that while the app at first targeted the very early adopter, 25- to 35-year-old crowd, its user demographics are now ‘extremely representative of online tourists generally.’
(And while this might say as much about Shank’s household dynamics as it does about HotelTonight’s company, he was likewise proud that his mommy recently reserved her very first HotelTonight reservation.)
Shank added that it’s dangerous to put all on-demand apps in one group, however did protect the category (which can occasionally be slammed for just accommodating the previously mentioned affluent techies).
‘I do not assume because one particular kind of on-demand service failed that on-demand itself is a failure,’ he stated. ‘Exactly what it does is, it empowers individuals to live spontaneously and live the way that we were originally wired.’
Looking ahead, Shank said the business is concentrated on two primary areas. First, there’s geographic growth. The supreme objective, he said, is ‘geographic ubiquity,’ so that the HotelTonight app can find you a hotel room no matter where you are, whether that’s in a farflung global location or a village in the United States. (As HotelTonight expands globally, it likewise faces more competitors.) Shank noted that inducing GGV as an investor need to be valuable on this front, provided the firm’s presence in Asia.
Second, he stated that one of the reasons for HotelTonight’s success has been the top quality, curated experience in the app, and the business will be ‘investing a lot in item, a lot in the platform.’