Why we invested in Inntelo AI: Transforming Hotel Communications with Conversational AI

Inefficient guest communications hurts hospitality

While guest communications are at the very core to the hospitality industry, many hotels struggle with managing it efficiently. The problem is compounded by front desk inefficiencies and ongoing labour shortages. This results in hotel staff missing requests by guests, delayed responses, and generally lower guest satisfaction - ultimately leading to lost revenue. The problem is especially felt by mid-market, high-occupancy hotels, who struggle to meet the demands of modern guests who expect quick, personalised responses, and seamless service.

Inntelo AI: Transforming Hotel Communications with Conversational AI

Inntelo AI provides an innovative solution for hotel communications by integrating conversational AI into WhatsApp and voice channels. Their AI-powered SaaS platform automates guest interactions, including guest check-ins, inquiries, and concierge services. This eliminates any missed guest requests or calls, while providing staff with the bandwidth to focus on higher-value tasks. Inntelo AI reduces the administrative burden on front desk teams, enhances their operational efficiency, and enables them to focus on delivering value and improving guest satisfaction.

Inntelo AI’s key features include a multilingual AI assistant which is available 24/7, which allows guests to communicate seamlessly across channels. The system also includes intelligent task management, streamlining operations by ensuring that guest needs are addressed in real-time.

Strong founder-market fit: Experienced Leadership in Hospitality Tech and AI

Inntelo AI is led by a highly experienced team with a deep understanding of both the hospitality industry and AI technology:

Asif Alidina (CEO) has over 20 years of experience in B2B sales, including 12+ years in hotel and facilities management SaaS solutions. He has driven £56M ARR during his career, with a focus on improving operational efficiency and guest experiences in the hospitality industry.

Dr. Tauseef Ali (CPO) holds a PhD in AI and Machine Learning, and has a successful track record as a founder of AI startups. With three patents to his name, he previously founded 20face, an AI facial recognition platform in the Netherlands, and brings his expertise in AI to the development of Inntelo AI’s platform.

David Fava (CTO) is a full-stack engineer with over 7 years of experience leading technical teams. He has built and managed banking and health monitoring apps which have been used by over 50,000 users, and now leads the technical development of Inntelo AI’s SaaS platform.

Antler’s investment thesis: 

Working with Asif, Tauseef and David from day zero has been a real pleasure. They’ve moved incredibly quickly on both the commercial and product side. Asif is incredibly driven and has used his strong founder market to quickly get traction with a number of hotels, build a strong pipeline of pilot customers and recruit a team of incredible industry experts as advisors. David’s full stack engineering experience enabled the team to launch the product rapidly to fit the different needs of their pilot hotels including the options of WhatsApp or voice plus the backend management system for the hotel staff to use to manage tasks. Tauseef has deep technical knowledge of the AI stack and through working directly with the pilot customers has helped architect the solution built by David. This is critical in delivering the performance needed by clients as well as building a technical moat. We see a lot of companies building in the applied AI space and we believe there are three key things a startup needs to win in these markets: deep industry insights, the ability to build quickly and a path to defensibility - it is clear to us that with Asif, David and Tauseef the Inntelo team has the necessary ingredients to build a venture scale business and transform how guests and hotels interact.

Within a couple of months of Antler’s investment, Inntelo AI has already gained strong traction in the market, with successful deployments in three hotels across the UK and Netherlands covering 390 rooms with another 520+ rooms launching in September and October. Inntelo has a strong waitlist of additional hotel groups initially covering a further 1,500+ rooms. We’re excited by what Inntelo AI has achieved in just a few months and the potential for rapid expansion. We’re incredibly proud to partner with Asif, Tauseef and David and can’t wait to see what they achieve in the next year.

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