Venture capital funds don't like it when everything goes smoothly and so two investment funds with a focus on hospitality technology are partnering to get in on all the forecasted disruption.
The new affiliation between Thayer Lodging Group, which has invested in more than 100 hotels and owns Interstate Hotels & Resorts, and Quest Hospitality Ventures (Hipmunk, Nor1, hotelme.com) will be called Thayer Ventures and it will be the successor to Quest Hospitality Ventures.
The focus of the fund will be "emerging technology companies, mobile distribution and consumer services, Big Data and analytics, social/distribution, energy technologies, group distribution and international," says Christopher Hemmeter, managing director at Thayer, adding:
We see major disruption and dislocation happening in distribution. We (like everyone else) see huge changes happening in mobile computing and mobile platforms, we sees travel playing out in social media in new and interesting ways. We see massive amounts of data related to travel offering new opportunities for revenue management and the like.
The idea behind the affiliation of the two funds is that Quest team will continue to operate autonomously, and Thayer will contribute back-office skills, as well as international reach and contacts.
Hemmeter didn't specify the amount of funding that would be available.
"We are still investing out of our first fund and will likely be investing out of the second fund in 2013," Hemmeter says. "Funds size remains to be seen."
Thayer Ventures typically won't invest at the seed stage, but Hemmeter acknowledges that its activity will be "stage diversified."
"We will be focusing on the emerging and development stage, but not against growth equity deals," Hemmeter says.
All of this is good news for entrepreneurs and young-buck hospitality-tech companies -- unless they are holding tight to the status quo.