Namastay has announced the completion of a EUR 2.1 million seed funding round.
Investors include prominent angels from the tech and hospitality sector, RockSalt – the venture capital arm of payment service and software provider Saltpay.co – and early-stage investor Firestartr.
Namastay will use the funds to strengthen its founding team, build out and deploy its product in France and in Europe, deliver top-quality service to its first customers by optimising guest booking experience, and increase conversion and revenue for hotels.
“As a group of seasoned technology and hospitality experts and entrepreneurs, we are thrilled to be transforming online bookings and payments for hotels,” said co-founder & CEO Frédéric Robles. “Our mission is to empower hotels with our one-click technology to directly engage with guests through fast, secure and intuitive digital experiences, from booking and payment to loyalty and insight. We want Namastay to offer hotels the best digital tools to bring customers back to their websites.”
Historically, customers have been reliant on booking hotels through online travel agencies (OTAs) such as Booking.com, which is the leading player in Europe with over 67% of the market share. However, OTAs charge hotels between 15-30% of a booking’s value.
Recently, there has been a shift in consumer preference towards booking holidays directly with the hotel (instead of using an OTA), with 39% of consumers reporting that they would use this method. This is primarily due to the direct booking method offering flexible cancellation rules, straightforward refund policies and better pricing.
Namastay is certified by SynXis, one of the leading channel managers for hotels and is therefore compatible with all hotels using SynXis. Namastay’s API is natively integrated into the hotel’s website and significantly streamlines the direct booking and payment process. For hotels, Namastay is a low-cost, easy to implement, plug and play API. For customers, it enables a slick booking and payment experience, with user-friendly interfaces and a mobile-friendly one-click booking and payment function.
Mobile bookings have grown by 1700% in the last few years, with users being five times more likely to leave a website if it is not optimised for mobile. Namastay can increase the conversion rate on hotel sites by ten to twenty times while providing a tenfold reduction in the direct booking time. Through its ‘one-click to your room’ technology, the company empowers hotels to offer – on their own website – the best direct booking experience to their guests.
The Namastay founding team includes hotelier Romée de Goriainoff, Fintech founder Alain Falys who launched the payment platform Yoyo Wallet, tech and hospitality investor Axel Wehr and former tech and antitrust lawyer Frederic Robles.
