ZUZU Hospitality has raised $5.9 million in a Series B extension round that includes long-time backer Wavemaker Growth, with participation from Velocity Ventures and other existing investors.
The Singapore-based startup, founded in 2017 by former Expedia executive Vikram Malhi, is positioning itself at the heart of hospitality’s artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, betting that new tools will not only supercharge its growth but also unlock new customers once considered beyond reach.
“The fact that existing investors have come in gives us confidence, that they believe in us at this pivotal moment when technology can be our rocket booster,” said Malhi, whose company’s mantra is “Empowering Independent Hotels.”
From Hotels.com to ZUZU: Shaping a customer-first approach to product building
Malhi’s formative years at Hotels.com shaped his approach to product building.
“Hotels.com was one of the first, maybe the first, online travel company that brought in commercial people to head product, to bring in a customer-first approach to product building.
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“We would sit with users, understand their behaviors and design around real needs. “The biggest lesson was—don’t build from what you want as a technologist. Build from what the user actually needs,” Malhi recalled.
That philosophy underpins ZUZU today: creating tools that empower small, independent hotels and optimize their online travel agency distribution channels. “Chains have scale, but independents have soul,” Malhi said. “Our mission is to scale that soul with technology.”
With AI, it is now able to test forward-deployment with clients. “We’re testing that—sitting down with clients to understand what they really want and then build based on their requirements. AI allows us to do this now within days rather than the months it would have taken.
“This allows us in a way to personalize product building, which is powerful for a small company like ours. It makes us more nimble and agile.”
AI as supercharger: RevMate and beyond
The company’s most recent innovation is RevMate, an AI-powered revenue management copilot. Drawing on ZUZU’s proprietary trove of data—over a million daily price points tracked for years, plus occupancy data from its 3,000 partner hotels—RevMate dynamically adjusts room rates, learns from booking pickup patterns and explains its pricing logic in plain language.
For independent hotels without revenue teams, RevMate can run autonomously, testing and tweaking prices daily.
Early deployments have shown a 40% jump in efficiency and a 25% to 30% boost in revenue, although Malhi acknowledges it is early days.
ZUZU’s advantage, he said, is its access to local market data and much more granular data than those provided by the global players.
ZUZU has also embedded AI into review responses, guest query handling and automated upsell and cross-sell recommendations. In one case, its AI-generated review reply referenced a guest’s child’s fifth birthday, an empathetic touch a templated human response had missed.
Opening new markets
AI is also altering ZUZU’s trajectory. While the company initially focused on small independents, Malhi believes the new tools will open doors to larger regional and global chains.
Without naming names, he said it was piloting the system with a regional group. “There’s a dearth of talent in revenue management, and the regional chains need solutions that have some level of scale,” said Malhi.
He added, “AI gives us rocket boosters. It compresses product cycles, lowers costs and lets us build for markets that were closed to us before. With every major tech shift—internet, mobile and now AI—new players can break into old industries.”
Fuel for the next chapter
With fresh funding secured, ZUZU plans to expand AI-powered solutions deeper into operations – from revenue management to upselling, cross-selling and beyond. The company employs over 200 people, but AI is already reshaping workflows, reducing the need for armies of specialists.
Malhi is as wide-eyed about AI as he is about the notion of flight. “I’ve flown so many times but every time I fly, I am filled with wonder at the miracle of flying—how this giant metal tube stays in the air and takes all these people places.”
For Malhi, ZUZU’s vision remains constant: giving independent hotels the kind of tools only Marriott or Hilton once had.
“Independents are bogged down with operations, but their hospitality DNA is unique. If AI can lift the burden, they can finally scale their soul,” he said.
This story originally appeared in Web In Travel.