We’re super happy to announce that our portfolio company Transparent has been acquired by OTA Insight. You can read the full press release at the end of this post.
We first heard about Transparent in June 2017 when Javier de la Torre, co-founder of CARTO, told us about the company. They had been working together on some short term rental projects and he spoke highly of the team and the data that Transparent had amassed.
I vividly remember talking to Pierre, CEO and co-founder, about the opportunity he saw in the short term rental industry, which was booming all over the world on the consumer front, but not so much on the data/B2B spectrum. At the time, the short term rental industry was often featured in the press in a negative way, and the team believed that most stakeholders (cities, governments, companies in the travel space, consumers, media entities and the B2B ecosystem at large) did not have reliable and quality data in order to make good decisions.
Our reference calls we did back then with other investors who had invested in the B2C space often mentioned that there was a clear need for “neutral” data providers who were not only good at capturing that data from the web at large and from first party sources, but also good at making sense of that data in order to draw actionable insights.
Soon after those conversations, we led the company’s seed round.
Overtime, Transparent became a market leading provider of data and business intelligence for the rapidly growing short-term rental industry, with customers all over the world and most importantly, a very loyal and tight team that Pierre and Nil were able to put together with the help of Drew and Steve Patterson, also Transparent’s co-founders.
No story about the travel tech space can be written without mentioning the impact of covid-19.
When covid hit in March 2020, Transparent had been growing at a nice pace for several quarters and was on the verge of closing a relevant Series A round. We believed we were just a mere few days away from such a milestone.
But you all know what happened and while many startups in other fields were positively affected by covid, those in the travel space were not.
Transparent came out very strong from that situation, and the growth experienced in 2021 was a testament to the strength that the team had built in years prior on all fronts (team, relationships with customers and stakeholders, etc).
Today Transparent officially became part of OTA Insight and we couldn’t be happier for Pierre, Nil, Drew and Steve and all of the Transparent team (those who are still at the company but also those who have left but were key at a certain point in time). I personally will miss working together with Pierre, but I’m sure we’ll cross paths again in the future.
Congrats all around!
Press Release
Following a year of rapid growth, the market leader in short term rental business intelligence will join forces with the market leading hotel business intelligence platform
OTA Insight, the global leader in cloud-based hospitality business intelligence, today announced the acquisition of Madrid-based Transparent, a market leading provider of data and business intelligence for the rapidly growing short-term rental industry.
The combination of OTA Insight and Transparent will create the world's most comprehensive platform for data and analytics across both hotel and short-term rental industries. “Distribution channels are converging, with OTAs offering both hotel and short term rental accommodation. The lines are starting to blur between accommodation providers with hotel chains rapidly expanding their short term rental portfolios” said Sean Fitzpatrick, CEO of OTA Insight. "We’re delighted to join forces with Pierre Becerril and the incredibly talented Transparent team to help meet the needs of a fast changing industry."
Founded in 2016, Transparent aggregates and structures data on more than 35 million listings across the globe. Transparent’s data originates from proprietary and public sources, including AirBnB, VRBO, Booking.com and industry partners.
Decision makers at short-term rental property management companies, destination marketing organizations, hotels, investors, OTAs and other industry service providers use Transparent data and analytics tools to drive their businesses. Transparent’s advanced analytical and integrative capabilities make quality market data delivered through the platform fully actionable, so that users can optimize their strategy.
"Transparent’s high-quality data is the fuel that has enabled thousands of customers to make smarter pricing, distribution and investment decisions,” said Pierre Becerril, co-founder and CEO of Transparent. "With the increased levels of convergence of hotels and vacation rentals, we believe that the combined Transparent and OTA Insight teams will help to consolidate our position as a market leader. Today, we are proud to join the OTA Insight team. We have a lot of synergies to build on, which will ultimately benefit our customers, teams and investors as we continue to scale and grow.”
We’re super happy to announce that our portfolio company Transparent has been acquired by OTA Insight. You can read the full press release at the end of this post.
We first heard about Transparent in June 2017 when Javier de la Torre, co-founder of CARTO, told us about the company. They had been working together on some short term rental projects and he spoke highly of the team and the data that Transparent had amassed.
I vividly remember talking to Pierre, CEO and co-founder, about the opportunity he saw in the short term rental industry, which was booming all over the world on the consumer front, but not so much on the data/B2B spectrum. At the time, the short term rental industry was often featured in the press in a negative way, and the team believed that most stakeholders (cities, governments, companies in the travel space, consumers, media entities and the B2B ecosystem at large) did not have reliable and quality data in order to make good decisions.
Our reference calls we did back then with other investors who had invested in the B2C space often mentioned that there was a clear need for “neutral” data providers who were not only good at capturing that data from the web at large and from first party sources, but also good at making sense of that data in order to draw actionable insights.
Soon after those conversations, we led the company’s seed round.
Overtime, Transparent became a market leading provider of data and business intelligence for the rapidly growing short-term rental industry, with customers all over the world and most importantly, a very loyal and tight team that Pierre and Nil were able to put together with the help of Drew and Steve Patterson, also Transparent’s co-founders.
No story about the travel tech space can be written without mentioning the impact of covid-19.
When covid hit in March 2020, Transparent had been growing at a nice pace for several quarters and was on the verge of closing a relevant Series A round. We believed we were just a mere few days away from such a milestone.
But you all know what happened and while many startups in other fields were positively affected by covid, those in the travel space were not.
Transparent came out very strong from that situation, and the growth experienced in 2021 was a testament to the strength that the team had built in years prior on all fronts (team, relationships with customers and stakeholders, etc).
Today Transparent officially became part of OTA Insight and we couldn’t be happier for Pierre, Nil, Drew and Steve and all of the Transparent team (those who are still at the company but also those who have left but were key at a certain point in time). I personally will miss working together with Pierre, but I’m sure we’ll cross paths again in the future.
Congrats all around!
Press Release
Following a year of rapid growth, the market leader in short term rental business intelligence will join forces with the market leading hotel business intelligence platform
OTA Insight, the global leader in cloud-based hospitality business intelligence, today announced the acquisition of Madrid-based Transparent, a market leading provider of data and business intelligence for the rapidly growing short-term rental industry.
The combination of OTA Insight and Transparent will create the world's most comprehensive platform for data and analytics across both hotel and short-term rental industries. “Distribution channels are converging, with OTAs offering both hotel and short term rental accommodation. The lines are starting to blur between accommodation providers with hotel chains rapidly expanding their short term rental portfolios” said Sean Fitzpatrick, CEO of OTA Insight. "We’re delighted to join forces with Pierre Becerril and the incredibly talented Transparent team to help meet the needs of a fast changing industry."
Founded in 2016, Transparent aggregates and structures data on more than 35 million listings across the globe. Transparent’s data originates from proprietary and public sources, including AirBnB, VRBO, Booking.com and industry partners.
Decision makers at short-term rental property management companies, destination marketing organizations, hotels, investors, OTAs and other industry service providers use Transparent data and analytics tools to drive their businesses. Transparent’s advanced analytical and integrative capabilities make quality market data delivered through the platform fully actionable, so that users can optimize their strategy.
"Transparent’s high-quality data is the fuel that has enabled thousands of customers to make smarter pricing, distribution and investment decisions,” said Pierre Becerril, co-founder and CEO of Transparent. "With the increased levels of convergence of hotels and vacation rentals, we believe that the combined Transparent and OTA Insight teams will help to consolidate our position as a market leader. Today, we are proud to join the OTA Insight team. We have a lot of synergies to build on, which will ultimately benefit our customers, teams and investors as we continue to scale and grow.”
