Guesty, which has created property management software for hosts on short-term rental platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo, is announcing that it has raised $50 million in Series D funding.
“In the public markets, there are many players in hospitality property management,” said co-founder and CEO Amiad Soto. “The same thing goes with residential property management. In short-term rentals, there’s no public player — you can bet your money that we are eyeing that target.”
In the past year, Guesty expanded to support other types of property, including multi-unit listings and “aparthotels.”
And just as Airbnb executives are predicting a travel rebound this year, co-founder and Soto said things are looking pretty good for Guesty’s business; in fact, he predicted that this is going to be “a hell of a year.” For example, summer reservation volume in the United States is 282% higher than in summer 2020, and even 32% higher than summer 2019. In the U.K., summer reservations are up 180% from last year (though down 19% from 2019).
“Yes, the pandemic changed travel, but not necessarily in bad ways across the board,” Soto said. “Definitely for major hotels, there are going to be big changes, but for vacation rentals and boutique-style hotels that offer different experience, this a lot more accessible and a lot more appealing. This is what our investors believe in.”
Guesty has now raised a total of $110 million. The new round was led by Apax Digital Fund with participation from the AMI Opportunities Fund, as well as existing investors Viola Growth, Flashpoint, Vertex Ventures, Kingfisher Investment Advisors and La Maison Partners. Apax Digital Managing Director Daniel O’Keefe is joining Guesty’s board of directors.
“We are incredibly excited to partner with the team at Guesty to help accelerate their mission to bring sophisticated property management solutions to a rapidly shifting global ecosystem,” O’Keefe said in a statement.
Soto added that the money will allow Guesty to continue investing in both growth and technology. For one thing, he said the company already uses machine learning to classify and route 80% of guest messages, and he sees opportunities to expand the use of artificial intelligence in the platform. The startup also plans to continue building out its marketplace of third-party integrations.
And Guesty has been busy on the acquisition front. Earlier this month, it announced acquiring fellow Y Combinator-backed property management platform MyVR, and today it’s revealing that it has also bought another property management company, Your Porter. Soto said that with Your Porter’s technology, Guesty will be able to serve hosts from family-run businesses with a few units to enterprise-scale property management companies.
He added that there will likely be more acquisitions in Guesty’s future: “Instead of all of us duplicating resources, why won’t we share resources […] and create a much broader product?”