{"id":15904,"date":"2024-11-21T21:42:23","date_gmt":"2024-11-21T21:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/TheNextWeb=1411376"},"modified":"2024-11-21T21:42:23","modified_gmt":"2024-11-21T21:42:23","slug":"uk-hospitality-startup-lighthouse-enters-unicorn-club-with-370m-raise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=15904","title":{"rendered":"UK hospitality startup Lighthouse enters unicorn club with $370M raise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/img-cdn.tnwcdn.com\/image\/tnw-blurple?filter_last=1&amp;fit=1280%2C640&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn0.tnwcdn.com%2Fwp-content%2Fblogs.dir%2F1%2Ffiles%2F2023%2F07%2Feurope-unicorn-tech-hub.jpg&amp;signature=6fbe9fc72b50f92be2d7a670df9550eb\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p>London-based <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/topic\/startups\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">startup<\/a> Lighthouse just raised a hefty $370mn from American investment giant KKR at a valuation of over $1bn, making it Europe\u2019s latest unicorn tech company.<\/p>\n<p>The funding will supercharge the company\u2019s ambitions to shake up the $15bn travel tech market. What\u2019s on the to-do list? Refining its <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/topic\/artificial-intelligence\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">AI<\/a> tools, expanding globally, and snapping up competitors through mergers and acquisitions (it has already made four).<\/p>\n<p>Lighthouse\u2019s platform crunches over 400 terabytes of travel data every day, using AI to turn that ocean of info into bite-sized insights that help hotels make better business decisions. It includes <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/topic\/data\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">data<\/a> like how many people are booking rooms, when they\u2019re booking, what they\u2019re willing to pay, and how hotels compare to others in the same area. This data helps businesses understand the market, predict trends, and make decisions to increase bookings and revenue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The startup says its tools are used by over 70,000 hospitality providers in 185 countries, including big names like Holiday Inn, Radisson, and NH Hotel Group. <span>It has more than 700 employees worldwide.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>CEO Sean Fitzpatrick is pumped about what\u2019s next. \u201cI couldn\u2019t be more energized by what we\u2019re working towards. We\u2019re just getting started in making hospitality data and tools more powerful, accessible, and affordable,\u201d he said, adding that KKR\u2019s investment will boost AI capabilities, pull in new data sets, and push the company deeper into the global market.<\/p>\n<p>Gino Engels and Matthias Geeroms founded Lighthouse in 2012. The company was originally called OTA Insight and started in Ghent, Belgium, before moving its HQ to London. Now, it has raised one of the largest rounds for any startup based in the British capital.<\/p>\n<p>For KKR, this is another notch in a long belt of tech growth bets. Since 2010, the firm has funnelled around $23bn into the sector. Stephen Shanley, KKR\u2019s head of tech growth in Europe, called Lighthouse \u201cthe leading platform in this space,\u201d praising its ability to serve everyone from boutique inns to multinational hotel chains.<\/p>\n<p>Back in 2021, Lighthouse raised $80mn in a Series B, with backers like Spectrum Equity and F-Prime Capital sticking around for this latest buy-in.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/uk-hospitality-startup-lighthouse-enters-unicorn-club-with-370m-raise\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>London-based startup Lighthouse just raised a hefty $370mn from American investment giant KKR at a valuation of over $1bn, making it Europe\u2019s latest unicorn tech company. The funding will supercharge the company\u2019s&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15904"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}