Roomex, an ambitious global travel software business headquartered in Dublin, today announces it has raised €8 million series A funding, led by Draper Esprit.
Co-founded by Jack Donaghy (CEO) and Karl Glennon (CTO), Roomex allows businesses to book hotel rooms globally through its platform, enabling its clients to save time and money by centralising all bookings and invoices in one account. Focused initially on Ireland, Roomex has now grown to cover global travel markets and customers now include Musgraves, Dairygold, Kepak, Mitsubishi and Muller.
The global corporate travel market is currently worth over a €1 trillion a year, yet the process of booking travel remains manual, time consuming and expensive for small and medium sized companies. Traditionally dominated by consumer platforms or service-led travel management companies, travellers are forced to keep receipts and submit expenses, bookers spend hours searching for the best corporate rates, while accounts teams spend hours reconciling expenses to credit cards.
The Roomex platform provides SMEs with an automated, frictionless way for companies to manage their corporate travel- from booking to billing. 99% of all their bookings are processed without any human intervention from Roomex; clients simply login into their account and book directly. With competitive live rates at every hotel in the world, the company is now serving over 50,000 business travellers from across the UK and Ireland.
The €8m funding round was led by Draper Esprit, with support from existing shareholders Frontline Ventures and Harmony Capital, and will be used to continue to develop a market leading booking platform and drive expansion into new markets. With deep experience in the hotel booking market over the past ten years, the team are now scaling up and have more than doubled the size of its workforce in the past 18 months.
The investment follows the €2.5m raised by Roomex in 2016 led by Frontline Ventures and backed by veteran technology entrepreneurs Paddy Holahan and Bobby Healy, together with ongoing support from both Enterprise Ireland and Bank of Ireland. Nicola McClafferty, ex entrepreneur and Draper Esprit’s Investment Director, based in Dublin, will join the board.
Jack Donaghy, Chief Executive of Roomex commented:
“We’re really only at the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we can achieve in the global travel industry market, which is worth over €1.3 trillion per year. We’re thrilled to be working with the team at Draper Esprit who bring with them a wealth of experience and expertise and are looking forward to building on the strong momentum we have generated in recent years.”
Nicola McClafferty, Investment Director at Draper Esprit added:
“Despite the innovation we have seen across consumer travel, managing business travel remains a real pain point for most businesses. Companies either manage the process manually or outsource to a service-led travel agent which is inefficient and expensive. Roomex is transforming this market providing SME’s with a one-stop travel management platform, delivering ease and efficiency from booking to billing. We are incredibly excited to be working with Jack and the team as they continue to grow the business in the coming years.”
For further information, please contact: www.roomex.com
About Roomex:
Roomex is a global hotel booking platform for business travel. For many companies, booking hotels can be complex, uncontrolled and unmanaged. This means money left on the table, time-consuming administration and often dissatisfied travellers. Roomex simplifies the entire process. Connecting to every hotel in the world, Roomex presents the best options to the hotel booker, at the most competitive rates, and consolidates all payments into a single invoice. To learn how to save time and money on booking hotels, please visit www.roomex.com.
About Draper Esprit
Draper Esprit is one of the most active venture capital firms in Europe, helping to build and invest in disruptive, high growth technology companies. We believe the best entrepreneurs in Europe are capable of building the global businesses of the future. We fuel their growth with long- term capital, access to international networks and decades of experience building businesses. We are the European arm of the Draper Venture Network, a global venture capital alliance, giving our portfolio access to a global footprint of corporates and investors. The company is backed by leading institutions, including the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund.
Draper Esprit's portfolio includes global technology leaders such as Trustpilot, Ledger, Perkbox, Revolut, and Graphcore. Recent successful exits include Grapeshot (sold to Oracle), Tails.com (sold to Nestle), and Movidius (sold to Intel). Visit www.draperesprit.com
