CloudArena, the hospitality cloud software startup, has just announce having raised $1.5 million in funding from Aslanoba Capital and Capital Partners for their digitalization of accommodations for travel agencies and hotels.
Numan Numan, Hasan Aslanoba, Arden Agopyan, Ali Beklen and Tolga Yalcinkaya
Founded back in 2011 by Ali Beklen, Arden Agopyan and Tolga YalcInkaya, the company that created HotelRunner and OtaMagic continues to grow their online sales and digital marketing plaform for hotels. According to the news release, this additional capital, along with revenue streams already in place, is intended to accelerate the startup’s further expansion.
Arden Agopyan had this to offer on this latest funding round:
“We are going to use this investment to enhance our productivity and increase the quality of our services to boost the sales and marketing competencies of our worldwide customers.”
CloudArena’s global has, over the last six months, has helped increase the online presence and sales of more than 1,250 properties across some 80 cities, according to the startup’s news. The service is claiming up to 7x increases in online reservations for those entities using their services. Also within this timeframe, CloudArena contends hotels increased occupancy by some 27%. At least one of the mitigating factors for the cloud service’s success being multi-laungauge support, so-called integrated marketing tools were among other key elements of progress and value.
Tnooz (Tweet below) had it earlier that CloudArena’s HotelRunner is a shoe in as a lower tier hotelier’s tool to level the playing field. On that note I feel compelled to test the service compared to some other competing services. We’ll be in Paris and London next week with Brian Solis discussing these very issues of hospitality and digital integration. Solis’ What’s the Future of Business: Changing the Way Businesses Create Experiencesand the norms there seem aptly applied to a European hospitality industry in many ways light years behind the digital curve.
Growing online: HotelRunner bridges digital divide for lower tier hotels http://t.co/7GNBhp8aP2
— Tnooz (@tnooz) June 11, 2013
For more information on just what CloudArena’s plans are readers should visit the prescribed links or visit the company’s release here. A last observation on CloudArena might be for their social media component to ramp up along with other aspects. Readers may connect with their Twitter here and limited Facebook contingent here. However lagging the startup may be with social media adaptation though, it’s crystal clear there’s a huge need for economy and especially independent hotels to compete with the chains.
I’ll be contacting these founders for more information, if they do not contact me first.