Ali Ventures leads hotel AI technology company Hotelmize

Hotelmize, a developer of hotel AI price prediction and revenue optimization technology, recently announced that it has received a Series B financing led by Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund and Israeli investment agency Brilliance Ventures.

According to its official website information: Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund is a non-profit project created by the Alibaba Group in 2015. It hopes to "help entrepreneurs and young people in Hong Kong and Taiwan to implement their dreams and visions." The fund invested 1 billion Hong Kong dollars in Hong Kong and NT $ 10 billion in Taiwan.

Although the fund is based in Hong Kong and Taiwan, the investment target does not seem to be limited to these two places. Founded in 2016, Hotelmize is headquartered in Israel. The fund has also invested in travel and related startup companies such as AsiaYo, a free travel booking platform, FunNow for leisure and entertainment, KKday, a travel experience platform, and Tripresso, a travel trading network.

With this financing, Hotelmize plans to expand its services to the Asia Pacific region, including the Chinese market. Hotelmize announced that it will establish its Asia Pacific headquarters in Hong Kong as a gateway to the Asia Pacific and China markets.

Hotelmize claims that its patented technology can help travel companies increase profits by more than 30% by streamlining and automating procurement processes.

Inspired by the global capital market algorithmic trading, Hotelmize has developed artificial intelligence technology that can monitor the fluctuation of hotel room prices. It hopes to monitor the fluctuation of room prices from room booking to guest stay, and conducts guest rooms in a manner similar to the capital market stock trading algorithm. transaction. Similar to options or warrants, house prices can also change dynamically.

Hotelmize believes that its algorithm uses an investment strategy similar to the "short" and "long" positions in financial markets to buy and sell hotel rooms in a fully automated way to generate additional profits previously unavailable to travel or hotel companies.

Hotelmize claims to have processed more than $ 2 billion in bookings to date and created more than $ 100 million in transactions for its customers.

According to Crunchbase data, Hotelmize has raised a total of $ 4.4 million in its previous three rounds of financing. In November 2018, Hotelmize completed a $ 3.8 million Series A round led by Investible.

But according to Hotelmize, the company had previously raised $ 5 million in funding.

Hotelmize announced that it will use the funds raised in the Series B financing to expand operations in the Asia-Pacific region and mainland China, develop data-driven service products, and enhance its core solutions, focusing on the company's AI forecasting capabilities.

Hotelmize was founded in 2016 by Dor Krubiner, Omry Litvak and Guy Levitan. The company has more than 20 employees at its headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israel, and four sales offices in London, Bangkok, Buenos Aires and Mallorca Office.

"The tourism industry is one of the most competitive industries in the world. Many tourism companies provide highly homogeneous products, so it is difficult to differentiate in the competition." According to Dorm Krubiner, CEO of Hotelmize, "Using Hotelmize's technology can Keep tourism companies in a competitive position. In the next few years, we will see tourism companies transform from 'commercial enterprises' to 'technical enterprises.' The demand for advanced data-driven intelligent solutions has grown rapidly. "

"The international hotel business has a huge market and we are always looking for cutting-edge technology to improve the efficiency of the industry. Hotelmize has proven its value to customers and the team has demonstrated strong execution capabilities." Cindy Chow, executive director of Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneur Fund Means.

"As we gradually come out of the predicament of the impact of the new crown epidemic, we believe that Hotelmize can contribute to the recovery of the hotel industry with its unique value proposition. We believe that with the investment and support of our fund, Hotelmize will be able to use Hong Kong as its headquarters Growing in the Asia Pacific region. "