- Groups360 recently announced that it raised $50 million from Accor, Hilton, InterContinental Hotels, and Marriott International.
Groups360 — a leading online marketplace for meetings — announced that the four major hospitality companies – Accor, Hilton, IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) and Marriott International – have invested a combined $50 million into the company. This investment will be used to enhance Groups360’s GroupSync platform and make group travel easier for meeting planners.
GroupSync is going to deliver the first truly transparent, efficient, and cost-effective online tool for meeting planners to source and book meetings and events across a wide selection of brands. By leveraging Groups360’s innovative proprietary technology, business intelligence, and industry expertise, the enhanced GroupSync platform will offer transparent rates, fees, and relevant meeting content across the meetings landscape.
Founded in 2014, Groups360 has a goal of simplifying and transforming the ways meetings are booked. And the company’s price predictor tool delivers improved transparency, reducing time and effort required to book meetings for both the hotel and the planner. Groups360’s management team has decades of experience in the meetings and events industry and provides the right mix of technology and experienced advisors. Using GroupSync, planners are able to search over 170,000 properties in 225 countries.
And Groups360 expects to deliver access to group rooms and space availability, pricing and an “instant book” capability for less-complex meetings as part of its future product roadmap. This functionality — along with other unique features — will ensure ease of use and meaningfully reduce friction for meeting and event planners. Plus GroupSync will include content from a wide variety of brands and independent properties.
“We have listened to meeting planners and heard their needs. Planners are looking for a simple and seamless experience for booking group rooms, meeting space, and ancillary services. Simple meetings should have a simple solution to make bookings across multiple brands easier. We are focused on continuing to enhance GroupSync’s™ reputation as the “smartest” search and book application available as it makes recommendations to planners based on their preferences and market price predictions from our algorithms. With this new investment in our business, we will scale up our sales, marketing, and engineering teams to deliver this enhanced GroupSync functionality to more planners around the world,” said Groups360 president and CEO Kemp Gallineau.
Going forward, Groups360 will continue to be led by Gallineau (CEO) and Executive Chairman David Kloeppel. And each of the investors will be represented on the Board of Groups360.
