Hospitality Cloud Software Provider, buuteeq, Announces $10 Million Investment

SEATTLE, Oct. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- buuteeq, the leading cloud digital marketing system for hotels, today announced it has raised a $10 million funding round co-led by venture capital firm Madrona Venture Group and by Concur, a leading provider of integrated travel and expense management solutions. This latest round of funding will bring total capital raised to $17 million and introduces new members to the buuteeq board of directors including, Concur CEO, Steve Singh and Madrona Partner, Tim Porter. The additional capital coupled with subscription revenue, from the thousands of hotels already on the platform, will accelerate growth momentum and enable rapid innovation across its product offerings.

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buuteeq's innovative platform and comprehensive suite of online services help hotels of all sizes create and manage effective websites, engage guests on social and mobile channels, and implement direct online reservations to improve their bottom line. buuteeq will use this latest round of funding to grow its customer base beyond their North and Latin America footprint, with particular focus in Asian growth markets and Western Europe. The company will remain focused on creating flawless customer experiences and this new capital will help the company continually enhance the marketing performance of hospitality customers.

"In our first 18 months in market we've already helped nearly 4,000 properties expand their reach and marketing capabilities online: resorts, luxury boutiques, major hotel flag franchisees, independents, and inn and B&B owners have all embraced our product," said Forest Key, co-founder and CEO of buuteeq. "Our innovative software improves occupancy rates while minimizing costs and is the solution that hoteliers have been waiting for. By helping hotels with their digital marketing we improve the discovery and booking experience for millions of guests worldwide which is our central passion as a company."

In the last 12 months, hotels using the buuteeq Cloud Digital Marketing System have served over 30 million customer impressions that have generated over 2 million reservation inquiries across web, mobile and social guest touch-points. buuteeq powered properties beat the industry benchmarks for Look-to-Book conversions by up to 20x by presenting prospective guests with the right information and a trusted direct-to-hotel booking platform to evaluate and make their purchase decisions with confidence.

"An integral component of our vision for the Concur T&E Cloud is to drive innovation throughout the entire travel eco-system," said Steve Singh, chairman and CEO of Concur. "In partnership with buuteeq, we can help hotels of all sizes, anywhere in the world reach their customers. This drives ongoing benefits for our corporate clients, who want to deliver the broadest array of corporate approved choices to their business travelers. It's through the creativity and entrepreneurship of smart companies like buuteeq that these next-generation services will be developed and delivered through the Concur T&E Cloud."

"buuteeq's digital marketing solution solves a very tangible problem," says Tim Porter, a managing director at Madrona Venture Group. "We talked to everyone from CTOs at large hotels to owner-operated B&Bs, and they are all unhappy with the current marketing solutions. buuteeq has struck a chord with customers, and we are looking forward to helping buuteeq's team take the business to the next level."

buuteeq's funding comes from a combination of traditional and angel investors, primarily in the high tech and hospitality industries. A full list of investors can be found here.

With this accelerated growth and global expansion also comes the need for great talent. buuteeq is currently looking for exceptional self-starters across all aspects of the business including; sales and marketing, design and UX, customer success and engineering teams, and international management. For a full list of employment opportunities please visit jobs.buuteeq.me

About buuteeq
buuteeq is the world's first Digital Marketing System (DMS) for hotels. Its offerings fuse technology ingenuity with online marketing savvy to improve a hotel's presence on the web, mobile devices, and Facebook, driving direct engagement with prospective guests that leads to higher hotel occupancy and reduced booking fees. buuteeq's Cloud DMS includes a content management system, multi-channel digital marketing, content publishing, integrated business intelligence and the ability to leverage a property's existing Central Reservation and Property Management Systems. Nearly 4,000 hotels worldwide have adopted buuteeq's solutions since the company's public launch in January 2011. www.buuteeq.com

About Madrona Venture Group
Madrona has been investing in early-stage technology companies in the Pacific Northwest since 1995 and has been privileged to play a role in some of the region's most successful technology ventures. The firm invests predominately in seed and Series A rounds across the information technology spectrum including consumer Internet, commercial software and services, digital media and advertising, networking and cloud computing, and mobile. Madrona manages nearly $1 billion and was an early investor in companies such as Amazon.com, Farecast.com, Isilon Systems, Sharebuilder, and World Wide Packets. www.madrona.com

About Concur
Concur is a leading provider of integrated travel and expense management solutions. Concur's easy-to-use Web-based and mobile solutions help companies and their employees control costs and save time. Concur Connect is the platform that enables the entire travel and expense ecosystem of customers, suppliers, and developers to access and extend Concur's T&E cloud. Concur's systems adapt to individual employee preferences and scale to meet the needs of companies from small to large. Learn more at www.concur.com.

Forward‐Looking Statements Disclosure
Certain statements in this press release are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include all passages containing words such as "aims," "anticipates," "becoming," "believes," "continue," "estimates," "expects," "future," "intends," "plans," "predicts," "projects," "targets," or "upcoming." Forward-looking statements also include any other passages that are primarily relevant to expected future events or that can only be evaluated by events that will occur in the future. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management at the time the statements are made and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon these forward-looking statements that speak only as to the date of this release. Except as required by law, buuteeq undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking or other statements in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE buuteeq