Mews Closes USD 110m Funding Round Led by Kinnevik
In March 2024, Mews announced it has closed $110m in fresh funding led by Kinnevik. The round was largely comprised of repeat internal investors, including Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Notion Capital and Revaia.
It is the second time we have led a funding round in Mews (in as many years) as the company has continued to outperform our expectations by moving into new geographies and segments and expanding its product suite.
The Market
At Kinnevik, we like to focus on large markets that are undergoing seismic changes. Today, the hospitality software and payments market is sized at over $20bn and expected to grow at a rapid 11% CAGR until 2030. This growth is predominantly underpinned by two major trends: i) shift from on-premise to cloud-based software, and ii) continued labour shortage and high turnover among hotel staff.
In the last 15 years, as whole industries embraced the benefits of switching from on-premise to cloud-based solutions, many hotel chains have remained stuck with a back room full of servers to power their operations. When we first invested in Mews, cloud penetration in early-adopter markets such as the UK or US was around 30%. In more traditional markets such as Germany, only about 10% of hoteliers had adopted a cloud-based PMS. Over the coming years, cloud penetration is expected to grow rapidly across markets and match that of adjacent industries like restaurant software, where it is estimated at over 55%.
The hotel labour shortage is not a new problem for the hospitality industry, and it was only exacerbated by Covid. Efforts to address the understaffing issue have not been able to keep up with the rebound in demand. For example, US hotels have seen their workforce decrease by almost 10% in four years, while recovering pre-pandemic booking volumes. As a result, hoteliers are looking at leveraging technology to enhance operational efficiency and “do more with less”.
Above all, hotel operations are (very) complex. Having to manage physical properties, front-office and back-office staff, reservations, housekeeping, food and beverage tasks… the PMS is the critical piece of technology infrastructure that sits at the heart of the hotel. Additionally, the shift in consumer behaviour towards digital-first interactions and personalisation means that today’s PMS need to offer much more than just core operational capabilities.
Enter: Mews
Built by hoteliers for hoteliers, Mews was created with the mission to transform and entire industry through technology and make hospitality more remarkable for everyone.
Mews’ product offering is focused on integrating into three key workstreams within hospitality management: i) save hotel staff time in day-to-day operations and empower them to create remarkable guest experiences; ii) help hotels increase bookings by providing a customisable and user-centric booking engine; and iii) provide hassle-free payment processing services using Mews Payments. Moreover, the defining characteristic of Mews’ tech suite is how tightly different modules are integrated and embedded within each other. While other competitors require hotel staff to use multiple systems for a single guest’s needs, Mews provides hoteliers with full end-to-end capabilities in its platform.
A key enabler of Mews’ success has been its partnership strategy. With over 1,000 integrations on its platform, it is the most connected marketplace in the hotel industry. Over the years, Mews has deliberately invested in an ecosystem of partners that can build on top of Mews, via it’s Open API, and offer best-of-breed solutions to hotels.
Since our initial investment, Mews has successfully executed its expansion up-market, with mid-market sales now representing over 60% of the new sales, up from around 30% a year ago. To execute this, Mews has significantly invested in developing features essential to crack the mid-market segment such as support for loyalty programmes, SOC2 certification and multi-property portfolio management.
As a result, Mews has achieved significant market penetration in its core geographies. Traditionally, the PMS sector has been fragmented, with the top-50 players representing just 52% of the market. In contrast, Mews has managed to achieve close to 30% penetration in Netherlands and Benelux and around 20% in its Nordics markets. At the same time, Mews has been recognised as the world’s best PMS in 2024 by Hotel Tech Report.
Moreover, we truly believe that the team formed by Richard Valtr (Founder) and Matthijs Welle (CEO) is the best in the industry and highly complementary, with Richard’s vision driving product development while Matt focuses on flawless execution to build an enduring organisation.
Fit Within Kinnevik
At Kinnevik, we are strong believers in backing innovative companies that are focused on becoming the one-stop-shop for all business needs within a vertical. We believe that as these companies develop their products, the opportunity to “land and expand” by selling beyond just software (such as integrated payments processing capabilities or additional distribution) emerges. Since our initial investment, Mews has demonstrated to be the perfect example of our thesis.
What captivated us and drove our investment was, and is, the team’s vision to move away from traditional, unrepresentative measurements like occupancy or revenue per available room (RevPAR). Mews aims to rethink how both space and time are utilised within a hospitality venue (internally known as Mews Spaces).
We are incredibly grateful to be able to participate in this latest funding round as Mews sets itself up for major expansion!