Event: 2018 Phocuswright Europe
Product: AdsHotel
Category: Startup Company
HQ: Venice, Italy
Principal(s): Filippo Fasolo, CEO; Marco Baldan, Chairman; Osvaldo Mauro, AI Director
Funding: Two seed rounds €400K and €800K by D-business (internal incubator)
Product Description: A solution to connect hotels to metasearch portals with ease and efficiency, allowing them to compete in the same Internet ecosystem of OTAs. Powered with AI, our progressive machine-learning computation provides hotels with unprecedented optimization suggestions to make more profits and more awareness. This self-catering solution, with its unique core features, enables hotels not only to connect and advertise but also to optimize their campaigns, increasing revenue and generating new direct bookings.
Business Model: Proven B2B business model. We charge hotels €1 per room per month and 10% of the marketing budget. With partners to which we supply our tech in white label, we do revenue share.
Competitors: Koddi (U.S.), DerbySoft (China/U.S.), WIHP (France), Kognitiv (Austria), myhotelshop (Germany)
Competitive Edge: AdsHotel increases direct sales to maximize hotel profits while reducing marketing fees. It makes hotels successful in selling direct to clients via price advertising and ready-to-book targeted ads.
Market Opportunity: Market size is about $2B and digital advertising is growing above 10% YOY. Indeed, the opportunity comes from approximately 750K hotels (based on Phocuswright) and the current average YOY expenditure of $3.8K per hotel. This average spent on platform is drastically increasing and a macro evolution, like the introduction of vacation rentals (HomeAway, Airbnb, etc.). In our space, we could more than double our target market.
Early Customers: Strand Palace Hotel (London), easyHotel (easyGroup), Nozio
