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.

South Korean hospitality tech company Onda, announced on Thursday that it has raised $10 million in its Series-B funding round.

Led by South Korea-based private equity firm TS Investment, the investors in this round included Industrial Bank of Korea as well as other South Korean investment companies like NAU IB Capital, Square Ventures, K Bridge Ventures, and Breeze Investment.

We confirmed on the ground that the domestic tourism industry was rebounding, and made our decision to invest in Onda, said TS Investment in a statement.

Specializing in online booking solution, global distribution system and property management, Onda has so far raised a total of $25.5 million.

In its pre-series B funding round, the company had raised $8 million.

With the Series B funding, Onda plans to accelerate its efforts on the digital transformation of the domestic hospitality industry, and develop a system to attract inbound travel, the company said in a statement.

The company recently launched Dive — a hotel property management system that it had been developing for the past two years.

Onda is now gearing up for its overseas expansion with a launch in the Southeast Asian hotel market. “Onda plans to provide a variety of solutions to assist outbound Korean tourists finding local hotels,” the company said.

“We plan to support the growth of Korea’s tourism industry in this post-Covid stage, both domestically and abroad,” Hyun-seok Oh, CEO of Onda said.

In its last earnings report, Onda had reported a gross merchandise value of $81 million in the first half of 2022, compared to $40.5 million in the first half of 2021.

The company has also said that it plans to directly operate residences and hotels, after successful trial operations in 2021.

Six months after raising $30 million, a startup offering operations management software to small hotels has made its first acquisition. 

Barcelona-based Amenitiz said this week that it has acquired Ododo, a French company that offers online hotel training. 

The Amenitiz platform contains several features, including data transfer to online resellers, online booking, automation of daily tasks like payments and invoicing, and online marketing. 

The Ododo training service focuses on helping hoteliers learn how to increase bookings and become more profitable. 

Amenitiz clients will now be able to access the Ododo training for free, the company said. Especially during a tight labor market, Amenitiz said that providing the training tool is the next step in further supporting independent hoteliers

Marc-Antoine de la Rüe du Can, the founder of Ododo, will join Amenitiz as head of content. 

Following the acquisition, Amenitiz is launching The Hotel Club, a multilingual training platform through which any hotelier can access free training courses.  

In addition, Amenitiz plans to host in-person events regularly throughout Europe, with the goal of helping hoteliers expand their networks.

Amenitizp completed a Series A round of fundraising in April. The startup is part of a wave of companies offering cloud-based software to help small hotel companies sell online. Some others include Cloudbeds, Hotelrunner, Clock, Yanolja’s Ezee, SiteMinder, and Oracle Hospitality’s Opera Cloud.

Amenitiz said there are 700,000 hotels, bed and breakfasts, and vacation rentals in Europe, 80 percent of which fall under the company’s target clientele of independent properties with 50 rooms or fewer.