In 2015, when Dara Khosrowshahi served as CEO of Expedia, the world’s largest online travel company, he spearheaded an initial round of funding for a New York-based startup company called ALICE. Clearly, he was enamored with the idea of a unified hotel services operations platform for managing staff work and guest communication across all departments.
While Khosrowshahi is no longer at the helm, having was just been appointed as CEO of Uber, Expedia remains enamored with that idea. Meanwhile, the need for hotels to upgrade their guest experience management platform capabilities, including the need to deploy a mobile strategy with their guests through native apps, SMS and the web, has only continued to gain traction.
That helps to explain the announcement today that ALICE has secured $26 million in Series B funding from Expedia. The investment makes Expedia a majority shareholder in ALICE.
The fact that ALICE has seen its platform usage more than double over the past 6 months would seem to be proof positive that the company is on the right path. ALICE has also more than doubled the number of hotels in its client roster over the past 12 months. Hotel clients are expected to process more than two million guest requests on its platform in the next 12 months.
According to the company, ALICE intends to use the funds to further its mission of “delivering the very best technology and customer service in the industry.” This round brings the total funding that ALICE has received to date to $39 million.
Disclosure: The solution provider featured in this article is a current or past client of Starfleet Media, which is the publisher of Hotel Technology News.
