Travel and hospitality is one of the most enduring and resilient industries in history. Driven by unbounded human curiosity and our innate desire to explore, the industry has overcome wars, recessions and most recently, a pandemic. It is also an industry that has traditionally prioritized in-person service and experience, placing technology in the backseat.
In the past decade, this focus on experience fueled the creation of B2C startups such as AirBNB, OYO and GetYourGuide who combined great customer experience with scalable tech to build massively successful companies. And while these disruptors still represent a tiny fraction of the overall travel and hospitality market, they have awoken the giants to the fact that technology can transform the guest experience while being a critical business driver. This has sparked a new wave of B2B startups that are transforming travel and hospitality sub-industries at a blazing pace: e.g. Toast* and Lightspeed in restaurants, SiteMinder and OTA Insight* in hotels and TripActions and Travelperk in corporate travel. We continue to see tremendous opportunities for more.
We are excited to announce our investment in Canary Technologies, the hotel industry’s first platform to provide extraordinary, end-to-end digital experiences from guest management to hotel operations. There are one million hotels in the world – imagine your favorite having no lines, no calling, no waiting, and no paper processes. A hotel powered by Canary offers seamless mobile check-in to breeze through the lobby upon arrival. A few clicks from your phone to order a ‘nice-to-have’ item to be waiting in the room (e.g., a bottle of champagne to bring to an event). A much-improved guest messaging experience for concierge and service requests. Payments capabilities lying underneath all those touchpoints. Canary is building the modern hotel technology stack to enable all hoteliers to deliver incredible guest experiences.
We first met Harman and SJ when they went through YC in 2018 and were blown away by their optimism, product instincts, and hotel industry expertise. They had a compelling vision for how software should transform the hotel guest experience, but also understood the quirks and challenges of selling into the hotel space (dealing with chains and brand standards, management companies, etc.). The industry is rampant with paper processes, archaic technology (e.g. the two most widely adopted property management systems are 30 and 45 years old, respectively) and a service mindset that often throws people at every problem (google “night auditor” job spec). Consequently, it takes entrepreneurs who can build trust and speak the hotelier’s language, focus on the end consumer and understand the dynamics of the many parties involved in tech buying. Harman, SJ and team have navigated the ecosystem with incredible a clear vision to bring forward the future of travel.
During the depths of the pandemic, we saw Canary conduct its business with empathy and patience, while delivering mission-critical products to help ensure hotels thrive and consumers feel safe. This care and customer focus since their founding only a few years ago has enabled Canary to be deployed at thousands of hotels and build meaningful relationships with some of the most influential hotel brands in the world. We’re honored to partner with this team on their Series A (along with our friends at Thayer Ventures and Commerce VC) and are excited to see them empower more hotels to deliver exceptional guest experiences around the globe.
* F-Prime Capital portfolio companies
We are excited to announce our investment in Canary Technologies, the hotel industry’s first platform to provide extraordinary, end-to-end digital experiences from guest management to hotel operations.