Treebo Hotels announced a $16 million (Rs 118 crore) Series D funding round from a group of investors led by French hospitality giant Accor, even as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the travel and tourism industry. The funding comes nearly nine months after the company raised a $6 million bridge round from existing investors.

Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd. (BCCL); Deepak Parayanken, deputy managing director of Mozambique Holdings, who invested in his personal capacity; and the company’s existing investors Elevation Capital, Matrix Partners, Bertelsmann and Ward Ferry. The Times Group, which publishes The Economic Times, is owned by BCCL are the other investors who participated in the funding round.
Accor had previously discussed investing in Treebo, but those talks fell through.

Accor's investment is part of a larger partnership with Treebo in which the hospitality company will deploy its cloud-based hotel management software at various Accor hotels around the world.

“The software is already operational at a selection of Accor properties and will be rolled out to several others over the next few months,” the company said in a press release.

“Their strong conviction in technology as a key enabler for the industry makes them the perfect partner for us as we grow both our hotel business and our SaaS business,” said Sidharth Gupta, co-founder of Treebo.

Treebo was founded in 2015 by Sidharth Gupta, Kadam Jeet Jain, and Rahul Chaudhary, all of whom have since left the company. Its main rival is SoftBank-backed Oyo, which has grown much larger than Treebo thanks to a sizable investment from the Japanese firm.

Treebo has relaunched Hotel Superhero, its SaaS business, with a renewed focus on serving both organised hotel chains and independent hotels. The company provides hotel management software that includes modules such as property management, point of sale, rates and inventory management, housekeeping, and guest assistance.

“Hotel Superhero is exactly the kind of technology that the hospitality industry needs today. It is cloud-based, intuitively designed and comprehensive,” said Floor Bleeker, chief technology officer at Accor.
In contrast to competing aggregators and networks such as OYO Rooms, Treebo Hotels aims to be a low-cost hotel brand. Treebo also won the "Best Budget Hotel" category in the 2017 Lonely Planet Travel and Lifestyle Leadership Awards.