Skift Travel News Blog

HotelRunner, a hotel tech startup, has acquired the point-of-sale software company PayPad. 

London-based HotelRunner said Tuesday that it has acquired the Turkey-based company and has rebranded it as HotelRunner POS.

HotelRunner said it offers a property management system and a set of other software products meant to help hospitality clients streamline sales, operations, distribution management, and more. It also offers a platform where travel companies can connect and do business with one another.

The PayPad technology allows hospitality companies, primarily food and beverage operations, to complete on-premises sales and payments. The tool can be used to accept multiple methods of payments, analyze sales, and more easily take actions based on data. PayPad had clients based in the UK, Spain, the U.S., and Turkey.

“This development represents a momentous shift for HotelRunner as it delves into on-premise sales operations for the first time, highlighting its sales-first approach in the hospitality and travel technology landscape,” HotelRunner said in a statement. 

This is HotelRunner’s third acquisition, part of a goal to offer a more comprehensive product. The company said previously that it plans to explore more acquisition deals to further consolidate this fragmented sector of travel tech. 

“Our strategic acquisition of PayPad and the birth of HotelRunner POS aren’t merely about enhancing our product offerings; it’s a bold leap toward our vision of building a bigger travel economy,” Arden Agopyan, co-founder and managing partner of HotelRunner, said in a statement. 

HotelRunner POS will be gradually rolled out worldwide, starting with existing clients, the company said. 

HotelRunner raised $6.5 million in a series A early this year. 

Wix last year relaunched its software service for hotels with technology powered by HotelRunner’s products.

Vervotech, a startup that manages hotel room data, is the latest in a string of travel tech acquisitions by Juniper Group.

Juniper Group said Friday that it acquired the India-based startup. Terms were not disclosed. 

Vervotech’s platform analyzes hotel booking data to remove duplicate listings across suppliers, a problem that can lead to inaccuracies and missed bookings. 

Juniper Group is an operating portfolio of Vela Software, one of the six divisions of Constellation Software. Juniper Group also owns software companies Juniper Travel, TPF Software, T4W, Airport Information Systems, and IST Cruise Technology. It also acquired Peakwork in April. 

Juniper Group said it is focused on acquiring and building businesses in the industries of travel, aviation, banking, insurance, healthcare, public sector, and oil and gas. Juniper Group made six acquisitions in 2022 alone, according to its website. 

Vervotech will continue to operate independently.

Juniper Group said the Vervotech product compliments its booking engine, while the acquired company now has access to more resources for further research and development. 

Sanjay Ghare, co-founder and CEO of Vervotech, said in a statement that the company plans to expand in Europe, North America, and the Middle East.

A U.S. hotel tech company with equity backing has acquired a booking engine based in Ireland. 

Houston-based Sceptre Hospitality Resources said Thursday that it has acquired Avvio. 

The private equity firm Serent Capital made an undisclosed “significant investment” in Sceptre Hospitality Resources in 2020. The Avvio acquisition was funded through that investment, Sceptre said. 

Sceptre provides hotel tech including symptoms for central reservation, customer relationship management, and revenue management. The company works with more than 1,500 hotels, driving 6.6 million bookings each year.  

Founded in 2002, Avvio launched its artificial intelligence-powered booking engine in 2017. The company also offers digital marketing and website design services. The booking engine, allora.ai, provides tech to more than 500 hotels globally and handles more than 400 million bookings each year. 

The deal will integrate the allora.ai tech into the Sceptre systems, the companies said. 

“Together, they will deliver an incredibly personalized customer purchase journey at every stage in the customer lifecycle,” said Rod Jimenez, Sceptre CEO, in a statement. 

The trade group Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP)— which produces the world’s largest hotel technology trade fairs — rejected on Monday an unsolicited merger offer by the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA), the largest U.S. hotel lobby.

The hotel technology career group is best known for putting on HITEC (Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition and Conference) trade fairs in several markets.

The trade group justified turning down the merger offer by saying the groups were mismatched. HFTP is a “global association with members from the entire hospitality spectrum” and wasn’t a comparable match with “a North American association with an advocacy focus whose constituents are primarily hotels.”

Sounds true. But HFTP also probably didn’t want to share revenue from its trade shows. Or AHLA didn’t offer enough money, because HFTP CEO Frank Wolfe is said to live up to his Wolfe surname in negotiations.

The hotel lobby ought to go after HSMAI Americas, an organization of sales, marketing, and revenue management professionals representing all segments of the hospitality industry, instead. But it won’t be cheap, either.