Hot on the heels of Groupon’s acquisition of last minute hotel booking app Blink, another Spanish competitor has been gobbled up. Madrid-based Hot Hotels has acquired local rival ReallyLateBooking. Terms of the deal remain undisclosed.
I understand, however, that talks started all the way back in April — so, unlike the premise of the two companies’ travel apps, this was anything but a last minute deal. In addition, all shareholders of ReallyLateBooking have become shareholders in Hot Hotels, therefore we can’t really chalk this up as a pure exit, more a merger of sorts.
ReallyLateBooking was an early entrant into the last minute hotel booking app space in Europe, having been founded in July 2011. Its mobile apps — which like HotelTonight and lots of other competitors offers a selection of last minute deals each day to help fill partner hotel's inventory, while also passing on significant savings to customers — has been downloaded more the 300,000 times.
In a statement, Conor O´Connor, CEO of Hot Hotels, says the acquisition makes Hot Hotels the “undisputed leader of last minute mobile hotel booking in Europe” — while talking up the last minute hotel booking app market as a whole. The Hot Hotels mobile app currently offers hotels from 30 countries and 201 cities in locations across Europe, Africa, Latin America, Asia and Israel.
What’s particularly interesting about the Hot Hotels story, however, is that the company remains 100% owned by its founders Conor O´Connor, Adelaida Muriel, Joe Haslam and José M. Fernández.
That’s in stark contrast to U.S.-based HotelTonight, which recently closed a $45 million Series D round.
Flying slightly more under the radar is JustBook, backed by Index Ventures and DN Capital, along with others.
ConversionConversion EmoticonEmoticon