BeCause, the Danish start-up transforming how the global hospitality, travel and tourism industries manage their sustainability data, announced today that it has secured $1.9 million (€1.75M) in seed funding from investors. The round, co-led by Denmark’s Ugly Duckling Ventures and Estonia’s Superangel.io, includes a $708,000 (€650K) open tail-end and the $1.9 million for strategic investors to join on equal terms.
“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” explains Frederik Steensgaard, BeCause co-founder and CEO.
With a $450,000 angel investment from earlier this year, BeCause has raised $2.6 million (€2.4M) to date. This latest installment will allow the company to grow at an accelerated pace as it continues to meet the demand for its solutions from major enterprise organizations and global travel brands, such as Booking.com, easyJet, Google, Radisson Hotels and TUI.
A transformative solution for sustainability data in travel
In an era of heightened consumer scrutiny and regulatory compliance, BeCause enables hotels, travel brands and marketplaces to streamline, simplify and reduce the costs of managing their sustainability data. Backed by an AI-powered platform, BeCause eliminates repetitive, error-prone tasks such as manual data collection at the individual property level and automates communication between hotels, industry organizations, green certification entities and booking platforms, freeing up valuable resources and leading to greater transparency between stakeholders and consumers.
Serving as a centralized hub for all sustainability data, BeCause 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.
“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,” says Andreas Green Rasmussen, General Partner at Ugly Duckling Ventures.
According to a June forecast from research and advisory company Forrester, the cumulative global green market spend is expected to total $325 trillion from now until 2050, with travel and transportation commanding 35% or about $114 trillion of that spend by the end of this period. By adopting the BeCause platform, hospitality, travel and tourism brands can responsibly capitalize on this demand.
“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,” explains Kärt Siilats, Venture Partner, Superangel.io.
An impressive and growing roster of clients
BeCause currently has over 20,000 hotels streaming sustainability data through its platform. It also counts over 50 certifiers, including GreenKey, and 15 travel booking marketplaces, including Booking.com, amongst its users.
“This newest round of funding allows us to continue our work with stakeholders in the hospitality industry and gives us the ability to respond to the massive interest in our sustainability data hub from adjacent industries like corporate travel and destinations and meetings,” says Steensgaard.
“We’re thankful to Ugly Duckling Ventures, Superangel and all our investors for putting their faith in us and our solution, which is critical to making travel greener and reducing its impact on the environment,” he adds.
Additional investors in this round include 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).
Securing funding in a precarious climate
The nearly $2 million raise for BeCause comes at a challenging time for start-ups, with the amount of capital down 38% from Q2 to Q3. Carta, the equity management platform, also recently revealed that it had had the worst quarter on record for company shutdowns. BeCause is flying in the face of that trend.
“Though we are just beginning our journey, the fact that we have signed some of the biggest names in travel and are more than anything preoccupied with handling non-stop demand reflects the pressing need for a solution like BeCause. We’re proud that through better sustainability data management, we can do our part to reduce the harmful impacts of travel on the planet and instead help sustainable choices flow effortlessly,” said Steensgaard.