Although the full terms of the transaction were not disclosed ,however Eric Muliro, the founder of HotelPlus in Kenya is getting a payout and $1.9 million in shares in HotelOnline, which was valued at $24 million before the deal. Muliro has also been appointed as HotelOnline’s chief technology officer. The company stated that the deal has increased its customers by over 2,200 and opened the door for additional customers and unique offerings like payment solutions, AI-driven pricing, and revenue management. The deal follows Series A funding the company received early in the year which was backed by Yanolja, a platform that provides online accommodation and travel services. The company was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. HotelOnline enables hotels to establish and increase their visibility online with a bid to tap a wider clientele base . It also helps its clients to deploy booking engines and gain prominence on distribution channels like Booking.com. In addition to equipping them with the capacity to manage operations on their own platforms using cloud-based digital tools including property management systems. HotelOnline also offers management services to property owners . Following the acquisition ,the company now wants to expand across Africa, where it currently has over 6,000 clients across 27 countries, by tapping HotelPlus’s reseller network, and the growing hospitality industry . The company plans to get a dominant position in East Africa, and in Nigeria and Senegal, as it works towards being a powerful pan-African player. HotelOnline co-founder, Havar Bauck, told TechCrunch, “We are significantly increasing our client base, while capitalizing on the combined strengths of both companies, creating a force to reckon with in East Africa’s hospitality industry.” “Because the HotelPlus client-base currently uses on-premise software, this creates a unique integration opportunity with our cloud solutions…We are creating a massive win-win situation for the HotelPlus clients, in other words,” said Bauck, co-founder HotelOnline . Trond Riiber Knudsen of the TRK Group, an Oslo-based venture capital firm and an investor in HotelOnline, said “A deal like this helps build a strong African travel-tech player, with a local and continental foothold. This is a key part of what we aim to contribute to through our stake in HotelOnline. We see great potential in the new company, and we look forward to the journey from here.”
