London-based Triptease, a startup that offers a SaaS to help hotels increase direct sales and therefore keep more revenue, has closed a $9 million Series B. The new round was led by BGF Ventures, with participation from existing investors Notion Capital and Episode 1 Ventures.
Triptease was founded in 2012 on the premise that hotels can do a much better job at direct selling rather than letting a plethora of online travel agencies (OTAs) and hotel booking aggregators, such as Booking.com and Expedia, cream off the top of their profits by means of affiliate revenue. Triptease’s best-known product is Price Check, a widget that sits on hotel websites and displays prices from across the web in real time.
The idea is to reduce the uncertainty surrounding a hotel’s direct price, and ensure you don’t wander off to search elsewhere but instead book direct and with confidence.
That in itself is a neat trick, but the startup has since expanded to offer a number of…