Raising a Series A has become harder and slower. Carta's analysis of Q2 2025 found Series A deal count down 18% year over year and cash raised down 23% to $4.7 billion, while the median Series A valuation rose to a new high of $47.9 million. The median gap between a seed round and a Series A reached 616 days. One investor quoted in the piece said that two or three years ago he saw companies with less than $1 million in ARR raising Series A rounds, and that today he might expect closer to $5 million or even $10 million.

Hotel tech is not exempt, but it is active. Abode Worldwide's Hospitality Tech Investment Index 2026 counted more than $1 billion raised by 40 hospitality tech companies between April 2025 and March 2026, with 19 rounds at pre-seed, seed or Series A against four at Series C or D. Seven PMS companies alone raised $408.1 million.

This self-assessment helps you judge whether your company is ready for that conversation, or whether you should spend another two quarters fixing the go-to-market first. It scores the things a Series A investor will test, translated into hotel tech terms.

How to use this assessment

Answer the 12 questions below honestly, using numbers you could show an investor, not numbers you hope to have. Score each one 0, 1 or 2. The maximum is 24. Add up your score per section as well as in total, because a weak section matters more than a slightly lower total. The bands are our working judgement, not an investor rulebook, so treat them as a guide to where your gaps are.

Section A: Revenue and growth

Question 1: Can you state ARR and live properties from one source of truth?

0 points: Different numbers in the CRM, billing and onboarding tools, and nobody can reconcile them. 1 point: One spreadsheet reconciles them each month by hand. 2 points: Billing, CRM and onboarding agree, and you can show ARR by segment, country and cohort in minutes.

Question 2: Is growth coming from more than a handful of deals?

0 points: One hotel group or partner accounts for most of last year's new ARR. 1 point: Growth is spread across accounts, but most deals were closed by the founder. 2 points: New ARR comes from many accounts, and people other than the founder closed a meaningful share of it.

Question 3: Do you understand your seasonality?

0 points: Bookings swing by quarter and you cannot explain why. 1 point: You know your slow quarters, but plans and targets ignore them. 2 points: Your forecast and hiring plan already account for hotel budget cycles and peak season, as covered in how hotel tech sales cycles follow the seasons.

Section B: Retention and expansion

Question 4: Do you know your gross and net revenue retention?

0 points: You track logo churn only, or nothing. 1 point: You calculate it once a year, roughly. 2 points: You report both monthly by cohort, using a consistent definition such as the one in our net revenue retention framework.

Question 5: How do those numbers compare with peers at your contract size?

0 points: Below the bottom quartile for your contract size, or unknown. 1 point: Around the median. 2 points: At or above the top quartile. SaaS Capital's 2025 retention benchmarks put median net revenue retention at 102% for companies with annual contract values of $25,000 to $50,000, with 111% at the top quartile and 97% at the bottom.

Question 6: Do hotel customers expand after the first property or module?

0 points: Almost never. 1 point: Sometimes, but it depends on one account manager's relationships. 2 points: There is a defined path from first property to group roll-out or second module, with numbers to show it works.

Section C: A repeatable go-to-market

Question 7: Is your ICP written down and reflected in your pipeline?

0 points: You sell to any hotel that will take a call. 1 point: The ICP exists on paper, but the pipeline does not match it. 2 points: Most open pipeline and most recent wins fit a written ICP, and you can show win rates by segment.

Question 8: Can someone other than the founder run a sale end to end?

0 points: No. 1 point: One rep can, with the founder joining the big deals. 2 points: At least two people close without the founder, using a documented process.

Question 9: Would you bet next quarter's plan on your forecast?

0 points: No; deals slip every month. 1 point: Partly; you trust the commit, not the pipeline. 2 points: Yes, and you can show forecast accuracy for the last three quarters. If not, read signs your pipeline forecast cannot be trusted.

Section D: The story and the data room

Question 10: Can you explain why you win in one sentence a hotelier would recognise?

0 points: The answer changes depending on who in the team you ask. 1 point: The team agrees, but customers describe you differently. 2 points: Customers, win-loss notes and your website use the same reason.

Question 11: Do you know what a new customer costs and how fast it pays back?

0 points: No CAC or payback figure. 1 point: An estimate that blends marketing and sales costs loosely. 2 points: CAC and payback by segment and channel, from real spend and closed deals.

Question 12: Is your use of funds tied to specific go-to-market bets?

0 points: The plan is to hire more salespeople. 1 point: There is a hiring plan, but no link to pipeline maths. 2 points: Each hire and channel in the plan is tied to a measured conversion rate and a target.

Score bands

Two rules on top of the total. First, any section scoring 2 or less out of 6 is a red flag on its own, because investors probe the weakest area hardest. Second, a 0 on question 1 overrides everything else: if you cannot produce consistent ARR and property numbers, diligence will stall regardless of growth.

What recent hotel tech Series A rounds show

Public announcements give a sense of what Series A hotel tech companies talk about when they raise. In February 2026 happyhotel, a German revenue management company, closed a €6.5 million Series A. It reported optimising the distribution of more than 50,000 hotel rooms across 12 countries and managing more than €1 billion in annual hotel revenue.

In January 2025 Reeco, a procure-to-pay platform for hospitality, raised a $15 million Series A led by Aleph, bringing its total funding to $25 million. In each case the announcement leads with scale inside the hotel industry, not just revenue: rooms, countries, hotel revenue managed or operators served. If you cannot state your equivalent numbers cleanly, that is question 1 again.

Our post on what hotel tech funding rounds say about the market covers the wider pattern, including why core systems such as the PMS attract the largest rounds.

Hotel tech specific traps

• Counting properties instead of revenue. Investors will ask for ARR, retention and payback. Property counts support the story; they do not replace it.

• One group deal that flatters the year. A single chain roll-out can double bookings once. Show what growth looks like without it.

• Partner revenue you do not control. If a PMS marketplace or reseller sources most deals, be ready to explain what happens if that partner changes terms.

• Stalling just below the bar. Many companies hit a plateau near one million ARR for reasons covered in why hotel tech companies stall around one million ARR. Raising into a plateau is harder than raising out of one.

Fix first, or raise first?

A low score does not mean you cannot raise. It means the money will be more expensive and the process slower, and the first job after closing will be the gaps you already know about. We look at that trade-off in should you fix GTM before or after your next raise. Most of the questions above map to stages of the hotel tech GTM system, so a weak section usually points to a specific stage that needs work.

If your score landed in the middle bands and you want a second opinion on which gaps matter most to investors, our free GTM leak audit shows where revenue is leaking across your funnel before you open a data room.

Frequently Asked Questions