A few weeks ago Beyond Pricing gained some column inches for attracting seed funding of $1.5 million in a round led by Resolute Ventures.
The startup, which launched last June and specialises in pricing technology for the holiday rental market, began life as Beyond Stays, a property management platform for Airbnb hosts and other short term rentals.
However, as other property management startups such as Guesthop, Pillow (Startup pitch here) and Flatbook, came to market, the team decided to focus on developing software to help property managers get more from their rentals. The team, co-founders Ian McHenry and David Kelso, head of growth Kameron Bain and software engineer Michael Palumbo, looked at existing rate management software for hotels and found it could not be applied to property rentals, often just a single unit.
McHenry says:
“Short-term rentals are now 25% of the accommodation market and growing 10x the speed of hotels, so it was also an attractive but under-served market.”
Beyond Pricing believes the vacation rental space, currently estimated to be worth $85 billion in the US and Europe and growing 30% year-on-year, will account for an even larger share of the accommodation market going forward.
The startup sees huge opportunity for revenue management in the space between the likes of Airbnb and HomeAway accommodation platforms at one end and hosts and property managers at the other. It’s already an interesting segment with various startups, some named above, stepping in to be part of the ecosystem building up around the property rental market.
Beyond Pricing is claiming a first with its dynamic pricing and revenue management engine for holiday rentals although it points to recent startups such as Pricelabs and Smarthost which also aim to help hosts manage pricing.
The company also thinks it’s ahead of the pack with agreements already in place with property management specialists including OneFineStay, Proprly, Guesthop and Lokkappart. It makes its money through a 1% charge of booking revenues to make it affordable for anyone renting anything from a spare room to a luxury property.
Beyond Pricing is already in 26 cities and the recent funding will help it expand expand into further markets.
