CuddlyNest, an Orlando-based online travel agency, has raised $3.5 million from angel investors. Founded in 2017, this brings the company’s total funding to $14 million, all from private investors.
CuddlyNest says it currently offers booking for four million listings in more than 200 countries and territories, ranging from luxury hotels to hostels and a variety of vacation rentals. The company will use the funding to grow its team and add new product features.
“I’m thrilled with this milestone. The support of investors has been a significant show of commitment to our vision and paves a new way for us to do better – and go bigger – with our business model,” said Ritesh Raj, CuddlyNest co-founder and COO.
“As travel habits shift, there is an increased need for search options curated for their emerging needs and newfound pain points. Our core focus is to design the ultimate and most intuitive search results page and to ensure inventory always matches search intent, and with a wide variety at that.”
The company says it is focused on providing more accommodations with flexible cancellation policies, since that comprised the majority of its bookings in the last six months. It will also add filters to help users identify properties that have implemented energy-saving and eco-friendly strategies.
CuddlyNest claims to offer the “lowest aggregate commission fee” compared to other global OTAs, and it uses a fee-sharing model that enables property owners to customize how much of the CuddlyNest commission they pay versus how much the guest pays.
For 18 months beginning in December, the company will offer the ‘CuddlyNest Care Program’, which will waive the commission fee for individual property owners – not property management companies – on as many as two listings. Raj says the purpose is to ‘empower individual owners and support them for the next 18 months’ and also ‘to add inventory at a much faster pace’.
