MiStay, a platform for booking hotels by an hourly basis, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from a group of investors, and ah! Ventures, reported Yourstory.
The Bengaluru-based startup MiStay, will use the infused financial to increase it leadership team and build up the brand.
Abhijeet Kumar, Founding Partner at ah! Ventures, said, “Hotel booking is a very large market and the unique approach of MiStay for inventory optimisation will change the way the hotel industry operates.”
MiStay was started by Sandeep Jaiswal and Pranav Prabhakar in 2016. The firm MiStay is a travel-tech company that allows booking hotel rooms by pack of hours and flexible check-in/ check-out times.
Currently, MiStay is operational in 75+ cities in India with around 800+ hotel partners and is one of the fastest growing travel-tech startups in the country.
Sandeep Jaiswal, Co-Founder and CEO, MiStay, said, “Travellers today no longer want to plan their trip based on the hotels’ check-in time. The hotel industry is poised to transform to meet these evolving travellers’ needs. This transition, however, requires disrupting the age-old technological ecosystem in the hotel industry and raising operational capabilities of hotels. We are building the entire ecosystem ground up to enable the flexible hotel stay and be the leader in this market.”
MiStay claims to have grown 5 times and hit operational profitability in June 2019.
“The micro-stay model brings a unique revenue optimisation opportunity for the hotels. Our product helps hotels realise their full revenue potential by unlocking the value in hotel inventory during the hours it remains unutilised. Hotels can in fact run at more than 100 percent occupancy,” said Pranav Prabhakar, Co-founder and CTO at MiStay.
According to the startup MiStay, the average hotel occupancy rate in India stands at around 65 percent, thus the unsold hotel rooms constitute around $6 billion of missed revenue opportunity for hotels.
MiStay creates a new demand of customers who require hotels with early check-in, short-stay or day-use rooms, which hotels can tap into to maximise their occupancy and revenue, it added.
In the segment of MiStay, other startups include MakeMyTrip, Oyo, Yaatra, Goibibo and many more.