Topkey, a financial operation system for the hospitality sector, has raised $5.1 million in a seed round.
The investment in the United States-based company, which was founded in late 2020, came from Felicis and brings the startup’s total funding to $6.9 million.
Currently in beta, Topkey aims to offer an expense management, billing and payment platform initially focused on vacation rental property managers.
The company originally focused on building a marketplace to connect owners and property managers but pivoted in mid-2021 to the financial operation system.
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Jonathan Sukhia, co-founder of Topkey, said managing expenses is a serious pain point for property managers as they have to pay for goods and services, calculate the cost across a number of properties and charge the expense back to either the property owner or guest or business.
“It’s a very messy process and errors are rife,” he said.
A second area where Topkey will help property managers is in the overall workflow, which is very fragmented currently with different systems for payment cards, banking, business intelligence and invoicing.
“Property managers run at 10 to 15% margin. They’re small businesses, often fast growing so there’s a lot of opportunity, but it’s not a business where they can afford to flush away thousands a month.”
The platform automates much of the process, which among other tasks sends texts to property managers when there is a purchase and enables them to upload receipts, assign them to a list of preloaded properties and bill the relevant party.
Topkey is also integrating with property management systems in the vacation rental market.