Lighthouse CEO on What Comes After Raising $370 Million: More M&A, Better AI

Travel tech has a new unicorn. With a new valuation over $1 billion for the first time, Lighthouse is one of the only travel companies to have reached that level this year.

The company joins the ranks of Mews, Flyr, Engine, and TravelPerk — fast-growing travel tech companies that also happened to secure large fundraises this year.

Lighthouse’s equity fundraise of $370 million was by far the year’s largest for a travel software company (the second being Flyr with $225 million) and one of the largest ever. Investment firm KKR led the round.

“We had a huge amount of interest,” Lighthouse CEO Sean Fitzpatrick told Skift. “And I think that's a very strong signal to the investment community, as much as it is to the technology companies in our space, that there's a lot of interest in hospitality and travel technology.”

Lighthouse offers a platform focused on driving