Israeli-Founded Property Management Company Guesty Raises $50M

Israeli-founded property management company Guesty announced the close of a $50 million Series D funding round on Tuesday, led by the Apax Digital Fund with participation from the AMI Opportunities Fund, and existing investors Viola Growth, Flashpoint, Vertex Ventures, Kingfisher Investment Advisors and La Maison Partners.

Guesty was co-founded by Koby and Amiad Soto in 2013 and built a platform for property managers to run their rental listings on a variety of booking channels like Airbnb, Booking.com, and others. The company is based in Los Angeles and has offices in Tel Aviv, New York, Barcelona, London, Milan, Lisbon, and Sydney.

The latest round brings Guesty’s total funding to date to $110 million, making it the highest-funded property management company in a competitive market where small and large hospitality brands are increasingly relying on robust tech solutions to manage their operations.

Guesty acquired fellow property management software MyVR earlier this month and announced on Tuesday that it also bought Your Porter, a Dutch mobile-first product for property management companies. “Both acquisitions will continue Guesty’s goal of powering hosting businesses of all sizes – ranging from small, family-run operations to enterprise-sized hospitality brands,” the company said in the announcement.

“We are entering an exciting chapter in our company’s life cycle with short-term rentals having gone mainstream as a direct result of the pandemic, now catering to an increased user base that expects the comfort and privacy of a home coupled with hotel-like amenities,” said Amiad Soto, who serves as CEO.

Soto said in a blog post that the short-term rental ecosystem has shown “incredible resilience” in the face of the pandemic. “Droves of consumers turned to rentals as the demand for more space and distance from others increased immediately – whether it was to work-from-home in a new location to escape a crowded city, visit family members without staying in the same abode, or to explore the world as a digital nomad – the longer-stay amenities of rentals made it easier to adjust to the lines of living and working blurring together,” he wrote.

Soto added that summer reservations volume in the US alone is currently 282 percent higher compared to last year and 32 percent higher compared to pre-COVID, 2019 volume. “These numbers highlight a bright future ahead, and Guesty is looking forward to being there every step of the way to support our customers and an industry that has shown resilience during an unimaginable year in which many had to quickly pivot and adjust their business models to stay afloat,” he said.

The company said it will use the investment “to power a year of hypergrowth in key markets, enhance its product capabilities to serve diverse customer segments, onboard top-notch talent and ultimately, be a pillar of support for the entrepreneurs who have built businesses off the democratization of hospitality.” Guesty also intends to focus on its third-party integration partners – from digital concierges to remote staff management systems to keyless entry solutions – to aid customers in providing “contact-free” guest experiences, all from within the Guesty dashboard.

“We are incredibly excited to partner with the team at Guesty to help accelerate their mission to bring sophisticated property management solutions to a rapidly shifting global ecosystem,” said Daniel O’Keefe, managing partner at Apax Digital, who will join Guesty’s Board of Directors.

“Guesty is a stand-out player in a rapidly growing market,” added Dave Evans, Principal at Apax Digital. “Having just acquired MyVR and Your Porter, and given the company’s differentiated product offering, Guesty is now the logical platform to consolidate the market, working with hosting businesses of all sizes.”

Guesty says its platform is used by both property managers and property management companies in more than 80 countries.