Munich-based hospitality startup Limehome has secured additional €10 million in an add-on financing round, bringing its Series A funding to a total of €31 million. The current investors HV Holtzbrinck Ventures, Lakestar, Global Growth Capital and Picus Capital have increased their investment under the leadership of HV Holtzbrinck Ventures.
Founded in 2018, Limehome is leading the hotel industry into the new decade by combining design aspirations of a premium hotel with the efficiency of a consistently digital operating concept. Today, Limehome is already represented at more than 45 locations in Germany and Austria, with another 35 properties currently under development. This will make Limehome 2020 the hotel concept with the second most locations in the DACH region. The capital from the add-on financing round will be invested primarily in the extension of the technology platform, the brand and in further company growth.
Via its proprietary technology platform, Limehome automates all conventional processes of a hotel operator – from pricing to booking, check-in, cleaning, customer service and billing. This results in efficiency improvements in the operation and space utilization of the locations. By doing so, Limehome can offer high-quality, fully equipped design apartments at the price of a 4* standard hotel room. At the same time, the startup can also operate smaller locations, highly profitably, which are not attractive for conventional hotel concepts.
Limehome’s business model has proven itself, especially in the ongoing crisis. Even at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in March and April 2020, when the travel market slumped by almost 90%, Limehome apartments were open and well occupied due to the contactless, fully digitalized hotel concept. Since the outbreak of the crisis in March 2020, the company has even more than doubled its revenue. Dr. Josef Vollmayr, co-founder and managing director of Limehome said: “The crisis was a severe test for us as a team and our digital concept. However, we were still able to be there for our guests in a time when the travel market almost collapsed and to continue operating our locations profitably. We see the additional financing as a strong sign of confidence from our investors in our business model and the further expansion, for which we see enormous opportunities in the market, especially in the upcoming months.”
Lars Stäbe, co-founder and managing director of Limehome, emphasized: “The hotel industry largely missed the digitization. By focusing on the needs of our customers, concepts such as contactless check-in and access as well as digital invoicing were our default from day one. We see that customers are now actively looking for alternatives to the traditional hotel. Innovative and technology-based models like ours benefit from such developments. The crisis therefore also offers numerous opportunities, which we want to use to lead the hotel industry into the future with a strong technology and customer focus.”
Despite the prevailing crisis, Limehome is pushing ahead with its expansion abroad and is entering the Spanish market. The first apartments will soon be opened in Granada, Barcelona and Seville. Ricardo Fernandez, Managing Director Spain, is responsible for the expansion to Spain and comments: “In Germany and Austria we already receive more than 5000 guests per month. We are now bringing the successful Limehome concept to Spain, a very exciting market for us. Even though Spain, as an international travel market, will certainly feel the effects of the pandemic even longer than Germany, now is the ideal time to enter the market. We’re welcoming the first guests since the beginning of October.”
