French hospitality major Accor leads $16 mn growth round in Treebo

Budget hotels aggregator Treebo has raised a growth round of Rs 118 crore (approximately $16 million) from a group of investors led by French hospitality firm Accor.

The round also saw participation of Bennett Coleman & Company Limited (BCCL), Deepak Parayanken, deputy managing director of Mozambique Holdings, who invested in his personal capacity and Treebo’s existing investors Elevation Capital, Matrix Partners, Bertelsmann, and Ward Ferry.

Accor’s investment is part of its broader partnership with the Bengaluru based firm under which the latter will deploy its hotel management software called ‘Hotel Superhero’, at various Accor hotels worldwide. The software as a service (SaaS) product is already operational at select Accor properties. It will be rolled out to several others over the next few months, Treebo said in a statement.

“We are thrilled that through our partnership with Accor, we will have the opportunity to learn from the very best in the hospitality industry. Their strong conviction in technology as a key enabler for the industry makes them the perfect partner for us as we grow both, our hotel business as well as our SaaS business, Hotel Superhero,” Sidharth Gupta, co-founder, Treebo said.

Hotel Superhero is an integrated hotel management software for hospitality companies and standalone hotels. It includes modules like property management, point of sale, rate planning and inventory management, housekeeping, and guest assist. The company had recently named its SVP of engineering, Mayank Khandelwal as the co-founder of this business unit.

Last month, Treebo re-hired some of the staff it had laid off last year due to the pandemic and strengthened its top leadership team. 

The company has raised a number of small-ticket funding rounds since the onset of the pandemic. Its last known round was in October 2020 when it secured $6 million from existing investors including Matrix Partners India, Elevation Capital, Ward Ferry, and Bertelsmann India Investments.

The same month, Deepak Parayanken, managing director of Mozambique Holdings, led a $1.35 million round into the firm along with several other angels.

Treebo was founded in 2015 by Gupta, Rahul Chaudhary and Kadam Jeet Jain.  The budget hotels aggregator manages a network of over 500 hotels across more than 100 cities under its brand.  Treebo competes with SoftBank backed OYO, MakeMyTrip, ClearTrip, Yatra and FabHotels in the segment.