RoomKey, a company that lets hotels offer their guests a suite of mobile guest services, has closed a $1M seed round led by 500 Startups, 500 Mobile Collective, and Horizon Partners.
While large brands like Hilton and Starwood began rolling out mobile check in about a year ago, most of this technology is still too costly for boutique hotels to deploy.
Enter RoomKey.
The company provides hotels with services like mobile check in and smartphone-based room keys, effectively allowing smaller establishments to offer the same mobile amenities as developed hospitality brands.
Besides mobile check in, the app also lets users start an in-app chat with the hotel’s concierge (similar to Hotel Tonight’s Aces feature), as well as book stays at any hotel on RoomKey’s platform.
The company charges hotels a flat $800 / month for these features, with an additional per-room fee if the hotel wants to install RoomKey’s Bluetooth hardware into doors, which allows rooms to be unlocked by a customer’s smartphone.
RoomKey also plans to generate future revenue by offering users ancillaries like last-minute room upgrades or the ability to book an activity during their stay.
While the platform is only live at about 30 hotels, Viko Bhakta, co-founder and CEO of RoomKey, explained that the company has over 100 properties in the pipeline to soon be added to the platform. RoomKey also eventually plans to expand beyond boutique hotels, and is already working with larger brands like Omni Hotel and Resorts.
Bhakta said that the company will use the funding to bring on hotels currently in the pipeline, as well as expand RoomKey’s sales team.