Kakao, KDB join $30m round for Japan's H2O Hospitality

They were joined by several other Korean investors, including Gorilla Private Equity, Intervest, and Nice Investment. Indonesia's Kejora Ventures participated via the Kejora-Intervest Growth Fund, which is expected to facilitate expansion in Southeast Asia.

H2O said the investment reflected its digital transformation of the hospitality industry in light of COVID-19, as well as a paradigm shift in the industry including growing demand for contactless and staff-less operations. Earlier this year the company acquired contactless hotel technology provider ImGate.

H2O provides tech-based hotel management services with a number of system platforms dedicated to different aspects of the business such as customer engagement, rooms, facilities, and overall property maintenance. Automation is said to be capable of cutting hotel expenses by 50% and improving sales by as much as 20%.

The company claims to have grown steadily during the pandemic across Japan, Korea, and Thailand, where it operates about 7,500 venues in total. This activity was supported by a $7 million Series B raised in late 2019 from Korea's Samsung Ventures, Stonebridge Ventures, IMM Investment, Shinhan Capital, Daesung Venture Capital, and ES Investors, as well as US-based 500 Startups.

"H2O Hospitality presents an innovator in the hotel management industry and provides an efficient and innovative way of managing hotels," John Lee, CEO of H2O said in a statement. "H2O Hospitality will do the best to support hotels' digital transformation for the smart operation and management, and to lead the new generation of hotel management."

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• Topics
• North Asia
• Consumer
• Technology
• Expansion
• Japan
• Kakao
• Korea Development Bank
• InterVest
• Kejora Ventures