{"id":43090,"date":"2023-10-20T15:26:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/us-venture-capital-fund-invests-us30-million-in-australian-hotel-bookings-company-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:26:00","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:26:00","slug":"us-venture-capital-fund-invests-us30-million-in-australian-hotel-bookings-company-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/us-venture-capital-fund-invests-us30-million-in-australian-hotel-bookings-company-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"US venture capital fund invests $US30 million in Australian hotel bookings company – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Online hotel distribution company SiteMinder has received $US30million from Technology Crossover Ventures, a leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm that has also invested in Facebook, Expedia and Netflix.<\/p>\n

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SiteMinder co-founder and chief executive Mike Ford told StartupSmart<\/i> their experience and this breakthrough was a sign of the considerable increase in attention Australian tech start-ups are now receiving from major US venture capital firms.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere has definitely been an upsurge in interest from the US funds. When we raised our series A round ($5.5million from Bailador) just 18 months ago, the US market didn\u2019t seem as interested. But several funds have reached out since then, which is exciting for the Australian tech company community,\u201d Ford says.<\/p>\n

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Launched in 2006, Ford says SiteMinder was bootstrapped and built on only $2 million of angel investment for the first six years.<\/p>\n

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After their series A round in 2012, they began to grow rapidly. In 2013 they grew by 70% and processed over $5 billion in booking revenue for more than 11,000 clients.<\/p>\n

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With its head office and 105 staff in Sydney, 70 in the United Kingdom and 12 in Bangkok, Ford says their major challenge in global expansion has been overcoming how far away Australia can seem to international hotel power players.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe challenge of going global with our technology was getting people over the idea we\u2019re sitting on an island somewhere. To establish a global brand from Australia took a bit of work. We had to plonk ourselves down right in the middle of those markets, so we could turn up and show face,\u201d Ford says.<\/p>\n

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The funds will be used for product development, as well as consolidating and growing their global presence, entering the US market and setting up an office in Dallas.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cDallas is the last piece in the puzzle of our \u2018follow the sun\u2019 strategy,\u201d Ford says. \u201cOur target market is global accounts, so we\u2019ve got all kinds of time zones and language to contend with. Between our three offices and now Dallas, we\u2019ll be available 24\/7.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SiteMinder launched its series B fundraising round last year to ensure it could grow quickly in the coming years, despite having surplus capital.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe hadn\u2019t burned all the Bailador cash, but we decided to bring the money on now because the next two years are the critical point in hotels adopting this kind of technology,\u201d Ford says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSeveral consumer booking applications are pushing quite aggressively into the US market, and hotels are rapidly adapting to this tech and we want to be front and centre of that movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In a statement, TCV general partner David Yuan praised Australia\u2019s entrepreneurial community tackling global business opportunities.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAustralia has a wealth of pragmatic entrepreneurs who are attacking global markets with compelling products and SiteMinder is a great example of this,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe have been following SiteMinder for a number of years and have been impressed with the company\u2019s rapid growth, market-leading product development, and a strong, talented team. As a pioneer, SiteMinder\u2019s culture of innovation is unparalleled. We are excited about this partnership and look forward to working with SiteMinder in continuing its global expansion.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is TCV\u2019s first investment in an Australian company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Online hotel distribution company SiteMinder has received $US30million from Technology Crossover Ventures, a leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59974,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43090"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}