UK / Sweden: Property monitoring company Minut has extended its Series B round to $20 million, receiving an additional $5 million in funding from London-based venture capital firm Smedvig Capital.
Smedvig joins Almaz Capital, Zenith, Kompas, Karma, KPN Ventures, SOSV, Verve, and other existing investors in investing in Minut.
Following a year of rapid growth and product enhancements, Minut seized the opportunity to extend the funding round, allowing the business to double down on product development and drive international expansion, increasing the team across Europe and the United States. The company previously closed an oversubscribed $14 million Series B round in March 2022.
To date, Minut has focused on the $100 billion-plus short-term rental space, enabling hosts and property managers to monitor their properties and automate various aspects of STR operations and workflows through its innovative hardware and software offering. The space is becoming increasingly professionalised, and Minut helps to create great guest experiences, drive operational efficiency, and support the community.
The investment will be channelled by the Minut team to fund multiple product initiatives that will benefit its portfolio of clients, hosts and property managers alike. Having recently expanded its offering to hotels worldwide with the aim of preventing unauthorised cigarette smoke in hotel rooms, Minut is taking steady steps towards achieving its mission to make the hospitality industry a better place for everyone.
This year, Minut launched two new “game-changing” features: a new-generation sensor that can monitor noise both indoors and outdoors; and its new cigarette detection feature that can detect cigarette smoke in properties.
By building new features and working on strengthening relationships with its partners, Minut says that it is blazing the trail towards a safer, more conscious hospitality industry. In a market where hosts often feel overwhelmed by unauthorised parties and cigarette smoke in their properties and where hotel managers report that the most common complaint they receive is related to cigarette smoke, Minut is aiming to become the global leader providing monitoring in places where privacy needs to be protected.
Nils Mattisson, co-founder and CEO of Minut, said: “We’re excited to welcome Smedvig as new investors extending our Series B round to a total of $20 million. Having known the Smedvig team for many years, we felt it was the perfect time for them to join at the stage we are in, bringing an impressive portfolio and expertise in Nordic and UK tech investments.
“With this new capital, we can redouble product development efforts and leverage our STR leadership into new verticals with a more aggressive hiring plan in both our European base and our international markets,” he added.
Freddie Kalfayan, senior associate at Smedvig Capital, said: “We have known Nils for five-plus years and have been tracking the business closely over that time. Minut have a fantastic opportunity to become the global leader in short-term rental property monitoring, enabling property owners and managers to prevent adverse events and drive material efficiency improvements in their day-to-day operations through a number of workflow automations.
“They have developed an exceptional, high-quality product that is loved by customers and has continued to evolve at pace since we’ve been tracking them. Their roadmap ahead takes them further on their journey to become a critical “co-host” for operators, enabling customers to create amazing guest experiences and drive operational efficiency,” added Kalfayan.
