Lighthouse Intelligence Ltd., a startup with a suite of analytics tools for hotel operators, today announced that it has secured a $370 million investment led by KKR.

The deal reportedly closed at a valuation exceeding $1 billion. It follows a $80 million Series B round in 2021.

London-based Lighthouse provides a set of software tools that hotel operators use to track competitors and customer demand. According to the software maker, its product suite is used by more than 70,000 hospitality companies. The dataset that powers the suite includes information on more than 300,000 hotels.

One of Lighthouse’s products, Rate Insight, is used by large hospitality companies to track rivals’ room prices. The software can highlight if a competitor charged less for a certain type of room in the past week. Rate Insight also provides various other data points that can make it easier for a hotel operator to set prices. 

Another Lighthouse tool helps companies ensure their rates are consistent. When a hotel operator advertises a room across multiple travel booking websites, technical issues or human error can cause pricing to differ across the listings. Lighthouse’s software automates the task of detecting such inconsistencies to save time for marketing teams.

In addition to pricing data, the company’s application suite helps hotel operators monitor customer demand. It offers a market intelligence tool that analyzes consumers’ hotel searches and flight bookings to find sales growth opportunities. The platform can, for example, point out opportune times to launch a new marketing campaign or offer discounts to repeat visitors.

Lighthouse sells its product suite for large hotel operators alongside a number of applications that target small hospitality companies. One such tool, Channel Manager, automates some of the work involved in listing a hotel room across multiple booking websites. It also promises to avoid double bookings by keeping those listings synced with one another.

The company will use its latest funding round to further expand its product portfolio. As part of the effort, it plans to roll out more data management and artificial intelligence features. It already uses AI to automate some of the analytics tasks that customers perform with its software.

The engineering investments will allow the company to provide “deeper insights, advanced automation, and a more seamless user experience—all designed to help hotels and hospitality businesses compete and win in an increasingly dynamic marketplace,” Chief Executive Sean Fitzpatrick wrote in a blog post.

Lighthouse also plans to expand its international presence. The company will do so partly by offering more “localized solutions and support,” Fitzpatrick detailed. 

Image: Lighthouse