Impala will invest in new booking technology and expand its team thanks to an investment of $20 million in Series B funding.
The all-equity round is backed by Lakestar, which previously invested in Airbnb and GetYourGuide, and Latitude Ventures, the Series B+ sister fund to LocalGuide.
This capital raise brings the company’s total funding to date to more than $32 million, including a recently closed $11 million Series A round in October 2019.
The London-based startup leverages robotic process automation (RPA) to establish a universal standard for business-to-business interactions.
Its platform helps vendors quickly and accurately access data from hotel systems at low costs and centralizes it in the cloud.
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Ben Stephenson, Impala co-founder and CEO, says that “by democratizing access to hotel data, Impala will fundamentally change the way people book hotels and interact with the places they stay.”
“Just like the trend towards open banking, the hospitality sector needs solutions that are smart, responsive and can ‘talk’ to the world outside – unlike the siloed, old-school operating systems they’re saddled with at the moment.”
Since launching in 2016, Impala has helped online travel companies such as Tripadvisor and has worked with more than 300 hotels, with an additional 3,500 hotels on the waitlist for the platform.
Julian Rowe, partner at Latitude Ventures, credits Impala for “building a mission-critical, rich, connective layer in the vast hotel industry.”
“Online travel was one of the earliest mass use cases of the internet – yet the underlying infrastructure supporting it has barely evolved. Impala will enable hotels to establish deeper, more personalized relationships with travelers, helping them become better businesses.”
Impala will use the funding for its booking tools, which the company says will increase opportunities for vendors to cross-sell hotel rooms.
Funds will also be used to grow the team and service larger enterprises.
Says Christoph Schuh, partner at Lakestar: “Impala has the potential to become an important layer for the future of travel, a trillion-dollar industry.
“Impala has assembled an exceptional team with top talent from across the travel industry, and we’re delighted to support them on this next phase of their journey.”