US: Virdee, a SaaS company delivering digital check-in and virtual concierge services to the hospitality and commercial real estate industries, has raised $4 million in a strategic round to further accelerate its growth across hospitality, multifamily, student housing and medical verticals where demand has been strong.
The company has added another $2 million on top of a previous $2 million in financing from September 2020, which takes the total seed round investment in the company to $4 million to date.
The financing was provided by Silverton Partners, an early-stage investment firm based in Austin. Also participating in the round were LiveOak Venture Partners, an Austin-based early-stage venture capital firm that partners with visionary entrepreneurs to build world class, category dominating companies; and DJR Advisors, which invests in high-return businesses that use state of the art technology to maximise owners’ return on investment.
Morgan Flager, managing partner at Silverton, said: “Virdee’s suite of SaaS solutions is uniquely positioned to remake the market for digital check-in and virtual customer engagement.ย With demand for the company’s products rising faster than anyone could have expected, we are pleased to partner to help Virdee strategically scale its businesses.”
In a time of rising costs and shifting models of customer service and operation, Virdee’s software is leading the real estate industry towards the adoption of contactless, customer-centric solutions that elevate the guest experience while reducing cost and increasing margins for operators. With early customer adoption at leading hotel, multifamily and corporate housing brands, the company’s API-first solutions have already demonstrated savings in staff time and reduction in friction around the check-in/out process.
Virdee’s products are designed to integrate seamlessly with leading door lock and property management systems and to provide the only complete solution for frictionless, contactless check in, serving guests in a simple and cost-effective manner.
Virdee co-founder Branigan Mulcahyย said: “We are deeply appreciative of the participation of each of our new investors. This is a group of visionaries with amazing experience in scaling and building out disruptive SaaS businesses.
“We could not be more excited about the insights and strategic guidance each of them brings to the table and look forward to working closely with all of them to build Virdee’s exciting future,” he added.
Leading the investment for LiveOak Partners is co-founder and partner,ย Krishna Srinivasan, who has more than 20 years of experience investing in early stage Texas-based technology companies, having helped create more than $2 billion in enterprise value.
Led by Richard W. Gray, DJR Advisors specialises in travel-related corporate development, technology due diligence, digital transformation and demand generation. Among other innovations, Gray is the co-founder and former CEO-chairman of TravelClick, a company that provides state of the art, cloud-based and data driven solutions that enable hotel owners and managers in more than 175 countries to maximise revenue and optimise profit.
Virdee co-founder Nadav Cornberg said: “We are grateful to welcome these esteemed investors to our seed round investment group which includes Rajiv Trivedi, past CEO of La Quinta and chairman of TST Capital. Along with them, we believe the debate about whether automated check in, verification and payment solutions will replace legacy methods is now long settled, and the question is now not ‘if’ย but ‘when.’
“We believe the time is now, and Virdee is the company best positioned to lead hotel and other real estate owners toward a completely contactless, efficient model of operation,” he added.
