Hotel operations management platform Spectaflow raises an additional €1.7 million

Reykjavik-based Spectaflow has raised €1.7 million in post-seed funding. The startup provides hotel and vacation rental operators with an integrated SaaS solution, specifically focused on the management and optimisation of cleaning and maintenance workflows. To date, the startup has raised a total of €2.5 million in investor and grant funding.

Let’s take a journey together, shall we? Let’s travel back to that time when you could travel to any far-off (or nearby) destination on a whim. Sans mask, sans hand sanitiser, and sans PCR test. “I’ll just grab a hotel room when I get there,” you’d casually think to yourself and that would be that.

Upon arrival at that “hotel when I get there,” there is nothing more of a drag than hearing those dreaded words, “We do have a room for you, but it’s being cleaned right now; if you’d be happy to wait just a few moments?”

It’s these “few moments” (that often accounted for sections of an hour) that Spectaflow is aiming to reduce, if not quell altogether. According to founders Petur Orri Saemundsen, Erlendur Steinn Gudnason, and Frans Veigar Gardarsson, hotel staff allocate approximately 15% of their time just trying to figure out which rooms are guest-ready, and which need to be attended to.

By providing one, unified, real-time room status dashboard, Spectaflow is aiming to cut out the myriad of spreadsheets, group chats, emails, and/or phone calls used to coordinate room status. Spectaflow not only provides a “what’s up next?” task management overview to cleaning staff, but also provides them with the ability to instantly report and upload any maintenance issues via their mobile device. The hint lies in the company name.

Not to be left out in the cold, a difficult task in Iceland, for sure, Spectaflow has also incorporated AI-based tools that assist hotel operators in total workload and staff planning, providing recommendations weeks in advance, all of which leads to better shift management and reporting for compliance with evolving international cleaning standards.

In addition to its own branded solution available on popular hotel and property management service provider marketplaces, Spectraflow also offers a white label solution to enterprise PMS system solution brands, and counts over 100 hotels in five countries amongst its client base. While Spectaflow declines to name any clients specifically, it's worth noting that Blue Lagoon Iceland founder and CEO, Grimur Saemundsen is an angel investor in the company.

The additional €1.7 million in funding was provided by Frumtak Ventures, with participation from existing investors, and adds to investments made by the Icelandic New Business Venture Fund, previously mentioned Grimur Saemundsen, founder and CEO of Blue Lagoon, Hilmar Veigar Petursson, CEO of CCP Games, and Thor Fridriksson, founder of TeaTime and Plain Vanilla Games.