{"id":18664,"date":"2024-03-06T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-06T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/?p=18664"},"modified":"2024-03-06T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-03-06T09:00:00","slug":"for-czechia-a-third-unicorn-hotel-saas-firm-mews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/?p=18664","title":{"rendered":"For Czechia, a third unicorn: Hotel SaaS firm Mews"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>As hotels shift from on-premise to cloud-based software, a Prague-based company created by hoteliers for hoteliers is leading the transformation.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Czechia has a new unicorn. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mews.com\/en\">Mews<\/a>, a Prague-based firm developing software for accommodation services and restaurants, this week announced that it had raised an additional 110 million US dollars in funding led by Kinnevik, with participation from Revaia, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Notion Capital, and LGVP. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following the latest funding round (which comes in addition to the company\u2019s 185 million US dollars investment round in December 2022), the company\u2019s valuation has reached 1.2 billion US dollars, meaning that it joins food-services outfit Rohl\u00edk and product management software developer Productboard as the third Czech unicorn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-cyan-bluish-gray-color is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/emerging-europe.com\/news\/economy-in-focus-czechia-2\/\">Economy in focus: Czechia<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/emerging-europe.com\/news\/whats-next-for-emerging-europes-fintech-sector\/\">What\u2019s next for emerging Europe\u2019s fintech sector?<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/emerging-europe.com\/multimedia\/emerging-europe-talks-reinvention-and-technology-adoption-with-rafael-e-de-hoyos\/\">Emerging Europe Talks\u2014Reinvention and technology adoption with Rafael E. de Hoyos<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-cyan-bluish-gray-color is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re seeing a fundamental shift in the way the world\u2019s leading hospitality brands are accelerating their digital transformation and reshaping the way they deliver hospitality,&#8221; says Richard Valtr, an ex-hotelier who founded the firm in 2012. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;With this raise we will continue to build industry-leading products with a world-class team behind us. In five years, the way that hospitality brands and guests interact with each other will be completely different, with Mews leading the way.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The funding follows a year of significant growth. In the last year, Mews has seen a more than 60 per cent increase in revenue year-on-year, crossing 100 million US dollars in annualised net revenue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kinnevik.com\/newsroom\/stories\/mews-closes-usd-110m-funding-round\/\">According<\/a> to lead investor Kinnevik, the hospitality software and payments market is currently sized at over 20 billion US dollars and expected to grow at a rapid 11 per cent compound annual growth rate until 2030. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This growth is predominantly underpinned the shift from on-premise to cloud-based software, and the continued labour shortage and high turnover among hotel staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The cloud-based Mews property management system helps hotels and apartment rental providers simplify operations and automate customer and guest management, manual tasks, bookings, and payments, assisting in streamlining operations for hoteliers and transforming the guest experience. It currently powers 5,000 customers across more than 85 countries and last year processed more than five billion US dollars in payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis funding is a credit to the strength of our vision, the Mews team, our forward-thinking customers and committed investors who have helped us get to where we are today,&#8221; says Mews CEO Matt Welle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;As more hoteliers embrace modern technology, we have a huge opportunity to help them streamline their operations, build more profitable businesses and deliver personalised guest experiences. Mews is in a unique position to truly transform the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\">An industry in transformation<\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p>Investors agree. Akhil Chainwala, investment director at Kinnevik, says, \u201cMatt and Richard are building a product and a team that is redefining the hospitality industry. In the short period of time since our initial investment, Mews has outperformed our expectations as it moved into new geographies and segments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Now, we are excited to further back the team to help them realise their ambitions and accelerate even more quickly\u2014especially to extend the platform\u2019s combination of software and payments. We\u2019re looking forward to continuing this journey with Mews and being a part of the transformation that is happening across the industry.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In January, Mews acquired Frontdesk Anywhere, a San-Francisco-headquartered cloud hotel management software, its third acquisition in North America in just under a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-cyan-bluish-gray-color is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Photo by <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@nagesh?utm_content=creditCopyText&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=unsplash\">Nagesh Badu<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/photos\/womens-white-long-sleeved-shirt-and-black-skirt-Osc-RQGb-Ws?utm_content=creditCopyText&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=unsplash\">Unsplash<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-cyan-bluish-gray-color is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Unlike many news and information platforms,&nbsp;<em>Emerging Europe<\/em>&nbsp;is free to read, and always will be.&nbsp;There is no paywall here.&nbsp;We are independent,&nbsp;not affiliated with nor representing any political party or business&nbsp;organisation.&nbsp;We want the very best for emerging Europe, nothing more, nothing less. Your support will help us continue to spread the word about this amazing region.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>You can contribute&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/emergingeurope.krtra.com\/t\/NlQnFuOA2C9c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">here<\/a>. Thank you.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/emergingeurope.krtra.com\/t\/NlQnFuOA2C9c\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/emerging-europe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/copy-of-add-a-heading.png\" alt=\"emerging europe support independent journalism\" class=\"wp-image-50811\"\/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-cyan-bluish-gray-color is-style-wide\"\/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As hotels shift from on-premise to cloud-based software, a Prague-based company created by hoteliers for hoteliers is leading the transformation. Czechia has a new unicorn. Mews,<span class=\"excerpt-hellip\"> [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18665,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[15,6320,7050,7054,6998,7053,7052,7051,6978,6624,6621,61],"class_list":["post-18664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-made-in-emerging-europe","tag-czechia","tag-featured","tag-kinnevik","tag-matt-welle","tag-mews","tag-productboard","tag-richard-valtr","tag-rohlik","tag-saas","tag-start-ups","tag-startups","tag-technology-innovation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}