Guesty secures $130 million in Collection F funding and targets IPO

Israel / US: Property management software platform Guesty has raised $130 million in a Collection F funding spherical. 

The spherical was led by world funding agency KKR, with participation from current traders Apax, BDT & MSD Companions and Sixth Road. Enterprise capital agency Inovia Capital additionally joined the spherical to assist Guesty’s growth and sustained progress.

KKR is making the funding in Guesty primarily by its Subsequent Technology Expertise Progress Fund III, a fund devoted to progress fairness funding alternatives within the expertise house.

Guesty plans to make use of the funding to proceed creating its best-in-class enterprise-level platform for property managers and drive market consolidation to develop the corporate’s world footprint.

Stephen Shanley, accomplice at KKR and head of tech progress in Europe; Lauriane Requena, principal at KKR Tech Progress, and Dennis Kavelman, Inovia Capital accomplice, will be a part of Guesty’s board of administrators following the funding.

Working in over 80 international locations, Guesty’s platform gives each enterprise and SMB property managers in addition to particular person hosts with the required instruments to handle your complete rental journey, fixing a few of their greatest ache factors. The corporate’s software program platform is designed to assist property managers promote and handle their trip or short-term rental properties, delivering unrivalled visitor experiences by a extremely intuitive person expertise and open API capabilities.

In 2020, Guesty introduced it might additionally increase into boutique lodge and aparthotel administration. Its core capabilities embody a centralised reservation system, channel supervisor, income administration instruments, visitor communication instruments, and monetary reporting and analytics.

Guesty will utilise the funding to increase throughout the USA. Jonah Mandel will be a part of the corporate as VP of gross sales to steer the growth, and Guesty may even spend money on catering to the European market, specializing in France, Germany, and Spain, whereas reinforcing its presence in Australia with buyer tailor-made developments.

Stephen Shanley, accomplice and head of Europe tech progress at KKR, mentioned: “Guesty is a best-in-class operator and one of many clear leaders within the property administration sector. There was a major shift in the direction of the short- time period rental market and this funding will assist the corporate because it continues to fulfill that rising buyer want.”

Lauriane Requena, principal with KKR tech progress, mentioned: “Guesty’s product is exclusive in its skill to supply the instruments prospects require all through the administration course of, giving them an unimaginable platform to proceed to increase. We’re happy to have invested within the enterprise to assist this subsequent section of progress, as they appear to the numerous alternative to develop the enterprise internationally.”

Inovia accomplice Dennis Kavelman mentioned: “We’ve been completely impressed with Guesty’s observe report in consolidating the STR section. We’re excited to additional make investments on this class as its significance within the journey sector continues to develop, and we’re assured in Guesty’s place as one of many clear software program leaders on this space.”

Amiad Soto, co-founder and CEO of Guesty, mentioned: “Guesty has loved astonishing five-fold progress over the past three years. We’re delighted that this has been recognised by top-tier traders KKR and Inovia, and we’re excited to have them onboard alongside our different traders as we enter our subsequent progress interval.

“The surge in these searching for short-term leases continues and our platform stays on the vanguard of the trade. As we embark on creating the trade’s first clever property administration platform, we’ll proceed to develop its performance and AI capabilities to ship first-to-market options and best-in-class assist for our prospects,” he added.

Guesty final introduced a significant increase in August 2022 when it secured $170 million in a Collection E funding spherical led by Apax Digital Funds, MSD Companions and Sixth Road Progress. The most recent spherical takes Guesty’s whole funding to this point to $410 million since its institution in 2013.

The corporate has additionally acquired plenty of companies and opponents, together with localised options expertise supplier StaySense, hotel-focused income and channel supervisor, YieldPlanet; hotel-focused, Queensland-based HiRUM; and property administration software program firms Kigo, MyVR and Your Porter. Additional consolidation by mergers and acquisitions [M&A] and for progress throughout extra geographies is anticipated, with a selected deal with the USA, France, Spain and Germany.

In current weeks, Guesty laid off an unspecified variety of group members, though Soto mentioned that the corporate was at “precisely the identical whole variety of folks”, including that “a change of focus and priorities has shifted assets to different tasks”.

When requested about Guesty’s prospects for an preliminary public providing [IPO] sooner or later, Soto confirmed that Guesty was setting a goal for an IPO and it might “progress when the market circumstances are proper”.