HRS acquires Conichi to build new payment-focused division

HRS Group, the only investor in corporate travel startup Conichi with a $10 million seed round in 2015, has now acquired the Berlin-based company. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The move is part of HRS’ development of a payment product platform.

Conichi founder and CEO Max Waldmann says the company’s Smarthotel product, which automates hotel check-in and check-out procedures, will continue to be offered as a product of HRS.

Waldmann, along with co-founder Frederic Haitz and the other 70 members of the Conichi staff, will join HRS to develop automated payment technologies.

“HRS has looked at payments for quite a while. They’ve had a product called Central Billing and Paperless Travel, which they’ve been promoting and selling to large customer globally,” Waldmann says.

“And what we’re doing is essentially taking the assets HRS has been building in the last years, taking what HRS has purchased from us and combining that in one new entity focused exclusively and entirely on payments. By streamlining the acceptance of virtual payments we can optimize the entire corporate hotel stay.”

The HRS payments business unit will be led by Nicole Mantow, who joined the company in June after serving as managing director for Germany at EVO Payments International. Waldmann will become chief operating officer and Haitz chief product officer for the payments unit.

“Payment has long been one of our most important strategic pillars. The new structure ensures the agility of the division while emphasizing the importance of payment solutions as managed travel evolves,” says Tobias Ragge, HRS CEO.

“An innovative and reliable payment process achieves 23 percent higher acceptance of the travel program by travelers; no other solution offers companies such savings potential, especially with an uncertain global economy looming in 2020.”

Conichi was one of PhocusWire’s Hot 25 Startups for 2019 and also innovator of the year at Phocuswright Europe 2017.