Category: HotelOnline in the Media

HotelOnline and Key Butler are joining forces in a new rental platform.

Behind HotelOnline are Håvar Bauck and Endre Opdal . The founders have, over the past five years, become a leading player in e-commerce and digital marketing of small and medium-sized hotels in Africa.

This summer the company raised NOK 3 million from, among others, Trond Riiber Knutsen and Indian Shravan Shroff , a profiled angel investor.

At the same time, HotelOnline announced a transfer of the group from Kenya to Norway , and in the Nordic venture there was, among other things, a merger agreement with Key Butler , the original Norwegian “Airbnb startup” which last year demanded .

Now Key Butler and HotelOnline are joining forces in a new company called Stay.Plus , where several “traveltech” companies have also been accommodated. The goal is to become a leading player in the Nordic market for short-term rental of private homes.

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Nairobi-based travel tech platform HotelOnline, has raised $320,000 from its existing investors and new investors such as Norway’s Trond Riiber Knudsen Group and Shravan Shroff, an early backer of India’s OYO Rooms, and the co-founder of India’s Venture Nursery, a startup accelerator. Shroff has joined the firm’s board of directors.

Havar Bauck, co-founder and Chairman of HotelOnline acknowledged that Shravan brings oversight and guidance to its board making it, even more, stronger as HotelOnline transitions into a profitable scale-up from a startup.

“We will use the investment to bolster our existing products and strengthen our focus on delivering outstanding quality to our hotel partners. We will focus on doing what we do best: Creating outstanding value for our hotel partners, and for our shareholders.”

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Håvar Bauck, the Norwegian entrepreneur who hit the news earlier this year over his dealings with controversial Polish tech entrepreneur Marek Zmyslowski announced yesterday that his Kenyan travel tech startup HotelOnline had raised $320 000.

The company provides solutions for e-commerce and digital marketing to more than 1500 hotels in 18 markets across Africa and South Asia.

The new investment was raised from existing shareholders (according to Bauck these include 68 shareholders mainly from Norway, Nigeria, Senegal, Kenya and Poland) and two new investors — Shravan Shroff, the co-founder of India’s first angel investor-backed start-up accelerator, Venture Nursery and Norwegian investor Trond Riiber Knudsen. Shroff has joined HotelOnline’s board.

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When Håvar Bauck landed in Kenya in 2002, the country was in chaos. The government of outgoing president Daniel Moi was preparing to exit the scene after 24 years in power. It was not clear who would become the next leader and despite great optimism of the future of the country, fear of instability was still evident.

“Kenya was experiencing a great moment of change. When Mwai Kibaki won the election, the country exploded in optimism. I was excited to see Kenya starting to realize its potential. The spirit of ‘yote yawezekana’ was contagious,” notes Bauck who was on a student exchange program through the Norwegian Peace Corps.

For Bauck, there began his great love for Kenya and an exciting journey for sixteen years that has pushed him to developing one of the biggest start-ups ever developed in Kenya that is making great ripples across Africa.

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HotelOnline, an online hotel booking software suite firm that helps hotels get online bookings through its super simple, cloud-based dashboard to manage bookings, rates and availability from one place has signed up over 1,500 hotels and accommodation providers across 17 markets in Africa, Europe and South Asia.

Connected to the major online booking channels, Hotel Online bookings come straight into the dashboard, and any changes are immediately reflected in all the online channels. Hotel Online is a Property Management System (PMS) with an integrated Channel Manager.

“Most local hotels in Africa find the whole process of marketing themselves online, challenging. So we offer that as an auxiliary service: We take high-quality pictures, and we build high-quality profiles on Expedia, CTrip, HRS, Hotelbeds, etc, as well as web sites with integrated booking engines,” said HotelOnline’s Executive Chairman Håvar Bauck. “The whole idea is that most hotels that are not already online, need a bit of help to get started, and that’s what we offer them. Along with the tools to get the most out of it once they get there.”

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Senegalese startup Teranga Solutions, a mobile and cloud-based platform for hospitality firms, has been acquired by European hotel booking company HotelOnline to create a travel-tech industry leader in global frontier markets.

Formed in 2017 via a merger, HotelOnline has operations in Norway, Poland, Senegal, Kenya and Nigeria, with commercial presence in Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Ghana and Pakistan.

Teranga was founded by brothers Moustapha Ndoye and his brother Alioune Ndoye, and featured at DEMO Africa in 2013. Early this year the startup was contracted by Destination Senegal, the country’s national tourism agency, to roll out its systems in more than 800 hotels across the country.

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