HotelQuickly, the largest same-day hotel booking application in Asia-Pacific closes series A round after raising HKD 9m. The funds will be used for further expansion within the region and to accelerate product development.
HotelQuickly is a mobile app offering “last-minute” hotel room booking for travelers. Rooms are available for same day booking from 12 noon to 4AM. Starting with that initial night, reservations can extend for up to 5 nights. The app is available for free for iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry 10 operated smartphones.
Hundreds of hotels across the region have partnered with HotelQuickly, selling their last-minute inventory with deep discounts. “Last minute hotel booking from smartphones is a rapidly emerging trend, taking over from traditional advance booking. Our app offers cheaper rooms than those found online, and all offerings are vetted to guarantee the best hotel experience” explains HotelQuickly’s CEO Tomas Laboutka.
Laboutka’s Hotel Quickly team consists of 25 seasoned entrepreneurs from the US, Europe and Asia. A significant number of them come from senior management positions in Rocket Internet’s regional ventures, Zalora, Lazada, and Foodpanda.
Their expertise has driven the speed of HotelQuickly’s execution and helped focus ambitious future plans. Now operational on 2 continents and 11 countries across Asia Pacific, Hotel Quickly now covers nearly 40 different regional destinations. Every week more hotels and cities are added, and more than 150,000 users have downloaded the app since late March. HotelQuickly frequently soars to the top of travel app download lists in app stores.
Financial backers in this round consist of angel investors from three continents, among them Boon Hwee Koh, former Chairman of Singtel and Singapore Airlines, and current board member of several private companies, including Singapore’s Temasek Holdings.
Laboutka is confident that growth of HotelQuickly will further accelerate: “We are still only scratching the surface of Asia’s last-minute booking market. When travelers in the region start to understand that with Hotel Quickly they no longer have to spend time on websites comparing hotels, prices, locations, etc., our presence in the marketplace will be more pronounced and build continuously.”
With spontaneous travels, weekend getaways, and short-term business trips becoming more popular across the region, the app clearly hits a major nerve in our busy era. The startup has already been named Top 100 Red Herring company in Asia of 2013, and has been nominated for Thailand’s Digital Innovation Asia awards.
