Same-day hotel booking for mobiles, HotelTonight, appears to be validating the model further by securing $23 million in Series C funding in an investment round led by US Venture Partners.
The capital will be put to growing the business both at home and overseas, develop its existing apps further and grow the team. The company launched in Canada in April this year, its first market outside of the US.
Rick Lewis, a general partner at USVP, will be joining the board at HotelTonight. Other backers in the new round include Accel Partners, Battery Ventures and First Round Capital.
The latest round eclipses its previous fund-raising efforts – the most recent and noteworthy being a $3.25 million injection in May 2011 led by Battery Ventures and a $9.1 million injection in November of the same year.
The total raised so far by the company has now reached $35.85 million.
The company says over two million downloads have been made of its Apple or Android applications.
But with 40 major cities in the US already covered (plus two in Canada), growing internationally was arguably always the next significant milestone to be tackled.
Competitors appear to be moving quickly as the model of same-day bookings gains momentum, with Priceline and sister company Booking.com launching their own versions for the US and global markets respectively.
In Europe, startup Blink Booking is also making some headway, having secured $2.5 million in May this year from PROFounders, SoftTechVC and Ballpark Ventures.
CEO Sam Shank says:
“Our goal at HotelTonight is to revolutionize the way people shop for travel. By building apps that allow users to easily book same-day hotel stays at great properties at incredible prices, we’re delivering on that mission.
“This latest round of funding will let us continue to build a top-rated product, drive growth abroad and in the US, and allow us to make moves that will establish HotelTonight as the next great brand in travel.”
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Congratulations to Sam and his team. Impressive progress and we look forward to some great innovation.
Congrats! Sam. Just a comment: I tried to use in Vegas a couple of weeks ago. Not a good city to test it in. Will try to use again tomorrow in Charleston. I’ll let you know what happens. One more thing, understand that hotels are limited, but as such, they need to give you rates competitive with what’s on Kayak that day.