Despite the cloud of uncertainty looming on economy and geopolitics, people still want to travel. To meet that demand, Mews, which built a “unicorn” set up in Amsterdam, built a SaaS platform for hotel management.
Funds come at the intersection of the travel industry.
Positive Signals from One Direction: Analysts at Oxford Economics say the industry has grown by 12% this year, bringing the ‘arrival’ of 1.75 billion people. And that amounts to money invested in a travel startup. Travelperk raised $200 million in January at a valuation of $2.7 billion. Hostaway raised $365 million in December 2024. And Germany’s Toururlane raised $26 million from Sequoia in November 2024. Prosus scooped Latin American traveler Despegar for $1.7 billion.
But it’s not all rosy. It is unclear how tariffs and other economic operations will affect people’s travel budgets, let alone uncertainty about geopolitics. It’s also worth noting that Expedia is laying off staff. Could it be a one-off move to improve efficiency or will it come more?
Mews has dozens of competitors. This includes incumbents like Oracle and other startups like Cloudbed backed by SoftBank.
For now, things seem to be humming for Mew.
New Backer Tiger Global led this latest equity investment in Goldman Sachs alternatives with participation from former investors Kinnevik, battery ventures and growth equity. (The battery led Mews’ $33 million Series B, while Kinnevik and Goldman Sachs led the startup’s $185 million Series C in 2022. Kinnevik also led Mews’ 2024 Series D.)
This latest round is opportunistic, CEO Matt Well told TechCrunch in an interview. Specifically, it came after Tiger approached the muse in search of working more together. As Mews doesn’t disclose its current rating, Welle called it a general growth round, adding that the startup is planning to raise a much larger series-level round in a year or two.
For some context: Just a year ago, when Mews discovered by Amsterdam raised Series D, it was valued at $1.2 billion.
Approximately 6,300 hotels now use a platform that has risen from 5,000 a year ago, and say in 2024 they have doubled the payments worth $10 billion, up from a year ago. In 2024, its revenues exceeded $200 million, adding more customers to the platform. They are also expanding services on that platform, generating more revenue for each customer. Some are organic, some are from M&A. For example, the recent acquisition of Atomize to help manage revenue. Pitchbook notes that Mews raised $100 million in debt last September to fund the acquisition.
While the majority of Mews’ business is in Europe (for example, it is said that there is 20% market penetration in the Duck region), much of the growth comes from a big push across the pond.
Recently, founder (and co-CEO) Richard Barth spends most of his time in the United States.
When Valtr founded the company in 2012, he understood many of the problems with running a hotel business. He is an independent hotel owner and found himself incredible opportunity to leverage the internet and use the rise of software as a service to build something new.
There are many point solutions in the hospitality market, but Mews takes an “toast” approach to the industry and builds its products with the concept of being end-to-end. It provides software to manage hotel availability and book online, directly and through third-party platforms. A tool for managing hotel personnel and facilities. Payment and accounting tools. Event management software. Loyalty and Guest Experience App. more.
As expected, Welle said Mews has been doubling AI recently. We have an in-house team working on a variety of projects, not just for agent tools for customers, but also for algorithms to improve the way MEW works. According to him, one example is a new customer profile option that incorporates all the individual activities and preferences logged in at hotel chains and creates a “tweet-sized” summary that can be used by conceages and receptionists to improve customer service.
“Mews is redefineing what it means to deliver exceptional guest experiences in the hospitality sector and beyond,” said Sara Eadie, who led Tiger Global’s investment. (Tiger refused to be interviewed for this story.)
As it grew, Mews has focused on catching bigger fish in the hospitality field. The company says the number of hospitality “brands” using the tool has doubled, with its new customers including the best Western Hotels, Weekenders and Lark Hotels.
To be clear, this does not mean that all the best Westerners are using MEW now. Like all transactions with customers running a franchise model, Mews is currently on an approved supplier list, but you will need to sign with an individual franchise to acquire a new business.
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