Finnish hospitality tech startup Bob W raises 21€m Series A funding round to accelerate growth
Tech-driven hospitality provider, Bob W, the provider of smarter and more sustainable alternative to hotels and short-stay rentals, has secured €21 million in series A funding, led by IDC Ventures, Elevator Ventures, Verve Ventures and Flashpoint.
Based in Helsinki and Tallinn, Bob W services consumers as well as companies, including international startups and next-generation enterprises in fields such as tech and creative industries. Despite being founded just before the pandemic, Bob W has quickly become a rising star in the hospitality space, seeing its year-on-year revenue grow by 800%, along with excellent margins, whilst achieving an average guest rating of 4.8 (out of 5) and a net promoter score of close to 90.
The series A funding comes as a vote of confidence in Bob W's ground-breaking concept: tech-powered short-stay apartments that combine hotel-like quality with the authenticity of individual rentals. Besides funding expansion into new and existing markets, there will be investments made into scaling its autonomous full-stack tech platform.
Niko Karstikko, Co-founder and CEO. Bob W: “Our goal is to use the funds to create a new industry benchmark for digital experience, and to support our explosive growth in new European markets beyond the UK, Spain, Finland and Estonia, where we currently operate. We have demonstrated, despite the challenging business and investment climate, that we can deliver a strong performance, which is reflected in our ability to raise capital. The resilience that we have shown, underpinned by our unique concept, robust tech platform and genuine sustainability credentials, sets us up perfectly for future expansion, whether through organic growth or mergers and acquisitions. We are resetting the expectation of hospitality for the consumer and now we can expand our reach across Europe with over 20 cities in our expansion pipeline.”
The Bob W brand is taking head on the challenge of gaining a market leadership position in the tech-enabled hospitality operation space.
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