Platforms like Airbnb have boomed with more consumers (and business users) than ever before keen stay in private properties when traveling or working away from their usual home base. That’s also meant a boom for startups building technology to help those renting out properties to manage the process. Guesty — which has built a platform to manage property listings across multiple sites like Airbnb, Vrbo, Expedia and Booking.com — is today announcing that it has raised $170 million, an all-equity round that it will be using to continue fueling its growth, and to tap deeper into providing tools to address our changing habits as consumers.
“With the ways people live, work, socialize and travel having shifted, the lines between traditional hotels and rental accomodations continue to blur,” co-founder and CEO Amiad Soto told me in an interview. “Hospitality operators — everyone from hosts to property managers to hotel brands — are continuing to adapt to this new reality. The last few years brought new customer personas to the short-term rental market, including classic hotel-goers who have higher demands for guest experiences and services.”
Apax Digital Funds, MSD Partners and Sixth Street Growth co-led the round for Tel Aviv-based Guesty, with previous backers Viola Growth and Flashpoint also participating — motivated in part by that vision of a changing travel and living landscape.
“As alternative property management operations become more complex, Guesty is paving the way for the next generation of digital hospitality services,” said Dave Evans, a partner at Apax Digital, in a statement. “Their track record of success and innovation, along with their platform’s growing suite of tools and intuitive user experience has Guesty positioned to define and consolidate its category, working with hosting businesses of all sizes. We are excited to continue partnering with the company as it continues to transform the industry.”
This is an all-equity Series E, Soto said in our interview (via email, because, coincidentally, I happen to be traveling myself). Soto didn’t say at which valuation, but he told me that the figure had tripled since its last round (a $50 million injection in 2021). PitchBook notes that last round was at a $230 million valuation; if that’s accurate it would put today’s round at $690 million. (We’ll update as and when we learn more.) The company is not yet profitable, Soto said, but it’s aiming for it next year, when it is also on course to surpass $100 million in ARR in the first six months.
The size of the round is big, but perhaps especially notable given the constraints that fundraising has been under in general this year. It’s also a measure of where Guesty is today, and where it’s going.
Soto and Guesty are not disclosing how many properties managed using its platform but directionally say the numbers are growing. “We expect our revenue and listings under management to continue to double year-over-year, both in 2022 and 2023,” Soto told me. (For a point of reference, the last time …read more