Hotel comparison startup Lodgeo has raised $3.3m (£2m), as it launches its new app.
The London-based startup aggregates data from travel agents and lets users book hotels without ever leaving the app.
Other comparison websites often redirect to third parties for transactions which, according to Lodgeo, often leads to confusion with both inventory and price.
The investment comes from Javest Investment fund along with three other angel investors who wish to remain anonymous.
One stop shop
Lodgeo was founded Ines Djelassi and has already brought Marin Muyser, co-founder of Booking.com, on to the company’s board.
The service is mobile-first (on iOS and soon Android) and solves one of the problems that has faced mobile-driven hotel comparison – bouncing from website to website between comparison and actual transaction.
Lodgeo’s metasearch function (one where a search engine looks through other search engines) finds results from all over the internet and then lets users book without redirecting to any third-party website.
The app boasts over 800,000 unique properties worldwide, and draws results from websites such as Expedia and Booking.com.
No newcomer
Djelassi has previous experience in the industry, having set up Hotel Solutions Direct in 2001, a revenue management company for independent hotels.
She is now hoping to make her mark on the £278bn hotel industry.
New board member Muyser added:
As travel is still migrating from offline to online and as online travel is moving more to mobile, there is a clear gap in the market for a fully integrated hotel metasearch provider supporting an end-to-end single user interface.
Lodgeo ticks all the boxes to be able to exploit this massive opportunity.
