EUROPE: BeCause, the Danish startup which helps hotels manage sustainability data, has secured €1.75m ($1.9m) in seed funding from investors.
With a $450,000 angel investment earlier this year as discussed in our Q&A with Frederik Steensgaard, BeCause co-founder and CEO, the startup has raised $2.6 million (€2.4M) to date.
The latest round, co-led by Denmark’s Ugly Duckling Ventures and Estonia’sSuperangel.io, includes a $708,000 (€650,000) open tail-end and $1.9 million for strategic investors to join on equal terms.
Frederik Steensgaard, BeCause co-founder and CEO said: “We have retained the possibility of adding another investor to this round and hope to find a partner that has experience with high-growth startups in the impact space, particularly those with a background in B2B SaaS models, travel and big data API, to help accelerate our mission even further”.
Backed by an AI-powered platform, BeCause aims to eliminate repetitive, error-prone tasks such as manual data collection at the individual property level and automates communication between hotels, industry organisations, green certification entities and booking platforms.
BeCause says its sustainable data reporting results in a “sixfold faster return on sustainability investments, amounting to a potential savings of millions of dollars for a typical hotel chain in the first year alone.”
The company currently has more than 20,000 hotels streaming sustainability data through its platform, as well as more than 50 certifiers, including GreenKey, and 15 OBTs, including Booking.com, among its users.
Andreas Green Rasmussen, General Partner at Ugly Duckling Ventures. “We’re very excited about BeCause’s ability to improve sustainability data collection and reporting for the hospitality and tourism industries. It’s a massive addressable market which thus far has lacked a purpose-built solution with the analytical capabilities to help players supercharge their positive impact on the people, planet, and profits.”
Kärt Siilats, Venture Partner, Superangel.io said: “We came in as a co-lead on this fundraising round because we believe in the power of BeCause to increase certified sustainability and decrease greenwashing in the accommodations sector. We are also very impressed by how fast the team has built a product that some of the world’s biggest brands are comfortable using,”
Additional investors in this round included serial exit entrepreneur Sean Brown (UK); Director, Business Development and Partnerships for fintech unicorn Circle.com, Sean Evans (UK); and private investor Patrick Patrong (DK).
Image: Photo by Joshua Sortino on Unsplash