Katanox Raises $5.7M and Appoints Rob Torres, Former CEO of Google Travel and Current Head of Expedia, as Non-Executive Director as it Scales to Enable B2B Direct Distribution of Travel Accommodations
Patricia Watkins
3 min read
Katanox, the travel accommodation and fintech distribution platform, has raised $5.7 million from a group of family offices of financial, hospitality and technology entrepreneurs to overhaul and reconfigure B2B distribution in hospitality . The group of investors includes Juan Pablo Ortega, co-founder of Rappi and Yuno, co-founder of fintech Dimebox and current co-founder and CEO of Founda Jan Joost Kalff, and founder of hotel technology iTesso Bas Blommaart.
In addition to his raise, Katanox is bringing in industry veteran Rob Torres as a non-executive director. Rob brings to the company over 20 years of experience and extensive network in the travel industry. He will work with the founding team to partner with global hotel brands.
“I’m very excited to grow my relationship with the team and apply programmatic advertising industry best practices for B2B distribution in hospitality. The Katanox team is building an intriguing set of solutions to bring the transparency needed in the age of open distribution,” mentioned Rob Torres, Non-Executive Director of Katanox.
The Katanox team combines innovative technology with decades of expertise in payments, travel, and programmatic media technology, to advance the future of B2B distribution in hospitality. Katanox addresses the $150 billion business travel market by streamlining and improving travel accommodation distribution, which has historically been controlled by online travel agencies (OTAs), global distribution systems ( GDS) and bedbanks.
“By necessity, we have seen many advancements and improvements in the travel industry driven by technology and digitalization. However, when it comes to accommodation, it is the trusted middlemen who control the market and stifle growth,” said Mendel Senf, co-founder of Katanox. “We are bringing much-needed change to the market by empowering accommodation providers by allowing them to control their own destination through the Katanox platform.”
Removal of barriers
This round unlocks international expansion and funds platform development and integrations with Central Reservations Systems (CRS), Property Management Systems (PMS) and Payment Service Providers (PSP).
Global hotel chains are under severe pressure due to the slow resumption of business travel by Covid and are actively seeking to replace expensive GDSs and wholesalers as connectivity and contracts between them and corporate travel agencies are too expensive.
Katanox brings together travel accommodations so that travel sellers such as travel management companies (TMCs) can create an end-to-end experience for their corporate customers. Giving them data streaming access and availability to directly search, book, pay and modify their reservation at any time. In addition to this, Katanox will introduce financial services such as price freeze, travel now pay later, cancellation/change fees as new revenue opportunities for both platform partners. The platform is a proven model for fintech and other industries to radically reduce costs and drive innovation through direct partnerships.
A transformative era for travel distribution
The International Air Transport Association (IATA), the trade association for airlines worldwide, has created an industry standard, known as New Distribution Capability (NDC) and Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP), which transforms how airline products are sold and paid for. Alternatively, the hospitality and vacation rental industry is lagging in distribution and payment initiatives. The pandemic has made it clear that B2B distribution in hospitality is driven by gatekeepers like the GDS and OTA duopoly, held back by archaic software solutions, and conditioned by monotonous payment providers like virtual credit cards.
The Katanox team, which has industry-transforming experience in programmatic advertising and payments, sees parallels with ad platforms that connect advertisers directly to publisher inventory or payment service providers that connect the fragmented world of payments and finance. Katanox is a first remote global company with a base in Amsterdam and has extensive hiring plans in engineering, business development and sales. His team is spread all over the world, from Amsterdam to London, Paris, Istanbul, Los Angeles and Mexico City.
About Katanox
Katanox is a travel accommodation distribution and fintech platform bringing together travel sellers and travel accommodation providers. Katanox makes it easy to distribute travel accommodation inventory and payments. The platform aims to usher in the programmatic era of B2B distribution in the hospitality industry. The team is led by Mendel Senf, Georgios Georgiadis, Imre Vogelezang and Paul Beukers, supported by a group of experienced industry professionals.
Mendel Senf
Co-founder
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