UK hospitality startup Lighthouse enters unicorn club with $370M raise

London-based startup Lighthouse just raised a hefty $370mn from American investment giant KKR at a valuation of over $1bn, making it Europe’s latest unicorn tech company.

The funding will supercharge the company’s ambitions to shake up the $15bn travel tech market. What’s on the to-do list? Refining its AI tools, expanding globally, and snapping up competitors through mergers and acquisitions (it has already made four).

Lighthouse’s platform crunches over 400 terabytes of travel data every day, using AI to turn that ocean of info into bite-sized insights that help hotels make better business decisions. It includes data like how many people are booking rooms, when they’re booking, what they’re willing to pay, and how hotels compare to others in the same area. This data helps businesses understand the market, predict trends, and make decisions to increase bookings and revenue.

The startup says its tools ...