Short-term rental property management software startup Guesty announced Thursday it has raised $35 million in Series C funding, bringing its total funding to $60 million. The real estate tech startup plans to use the investment to open new offices, enhance product capabilities and introduce artificial intelligence and machine learning into the platform.
“Guesty’s strategic analysis shows that the short-term rental business is a lucrative one – with an addressable market size of $169 billion in 2018 alone,” Guesty CEO Amiad Soto said in a statement. “The increasing growth of the space, thanks to sites like Airbnb, Booking.com and many more, has resulted in short-term lets commanding around 30 percent higher profits than long-term leases.”
“With such a high demand from travelers, Guesty is filling a crucial role in helping property managers more efficiently manage their overwhelming list of to-dos and more importantly, grow their businesses,” Soto added. “This market will only continue to grow as we see the ripple effect of trends like remote working, the shared economy and travel becoming more of a commodity, rather than a luxury.”
Guesty is a property management platform that provides property managers and management companies with a software solution to manage multiple short-term rental listings, through sites like Airbnb, Booking.com, Agoda and TripAdvisior.
Users of the platform can communicate with consumers – through automated messaging if they choose – as well as process payments, create branded websites and push their listings to multiple booking sites.
The funding round is led by Viola Growth with participation from Vertex Ventures, Journey Ventures, Kingfisher Investment Advisors, La Maison Compagnie d’Investissement and existing investors TLV Partners and Magma Ventures. Additionally, Natalie Refuah, a partner at Viola Growth, will join Guesty’s board of directors.
“Guesty was the first to recognize the potential of the property management market and has quickly become a category leader with its vertical-oriented, end-to-end approach,” Refuah said in a statement. “Technology and AI continue to disrupt the innovation stack, acting as a catalyst to the digitization of ‘traditional’ areas such as real estate and travel.”
Guesty graduated from the Silicon Valley-based seed acceleration Y Combinator in 2014 and has since grown to be utilized by both property managers and property management companies in 70 plus countries, according to the company.
Customers who use the product report a 150 percent increase in revenue annually and a 100 percent increase in listings annually, according to Guesty.
