The Barcelona entrepreneurial ecosystem is the cradle of potential unicorns, and also the base of companies that have already surpassed the billion-dollar valuation. Unicorns born in the city operate there, but also those from other cities that have chosen to open an office in the Catalan capital due to its ecosystem and location. This is the case of the British traveltech Lighthouse, a leading commercial platform in the tourism and hotel sector that provides data to effectively price rooms and efficiently measure performance.
The company acquired unicorn status in November, after a $370 million round led by global investment firm KKR. The company will direct the investment obtained from this operation towards its global expansion, in a strategy that highlights its activity in Spain as key, where it operates with its Barcelona office and another in Madrid.
The company, which has a total of 700 employees and established itself in the Catalan capital two years ago, plans to accompany this expansion with an increase in staff in its offices in Spain. It currently has 60 people, with 25 of them physically in Barcelona, and plans to increase this figure to around one hundred employees in the Spanish market.
"We have discovered fantastic talent, well-trained and with experience in both hospitality and the technological field," highlights Lighthouse CEO, Sean Fitzpatrick. In this context, the company has made "the strategic decision to continue expanding from Spain," taking advantage of a digital ecosystem that connects it with other projects and from which good professionals with technological profiles emerge, according to him.
Thus, the traveltech plans to boost its growth also from its Barcelona office, to reach more hotels and markets. It currently has more than 70,000 hotels in 185 countries as clients, to which it provides real-time data on a single platform to efficiently set prices.
"Now we want to continue growing," in a strategy in which they also plan to acquire other companies that complement their technology. So far, Lighthouse has acquired five, and now has "two or three companies whose potential acquisition we are evaluating, in the next 12 or 18 months" in its sights.
With this expansion, the new unicorn plans to strengthen its presence in Europe, and looks with determination to other markets, especially Asian and Latin American: "They represent a massive opportunity for us to continue growing", according to Fitzpatrick. And it is that, "although we have grown a lot in recent years and continue to grow very fast, the tourism industry is so large and represents such an important part of the global economy, that we are only just beginning."