A Note from Canary’s Founders on Our $15 Million Raise

At Canary, we have passed many important milestones on our journey to modernize the hotel tech stack, but recently we hit one that feels particularly noteworthy. Last week, we announced that we raised $15 million in Series A funding led by F-Prime Capital. This is a momentous achievement and we’re so very grateful to, and proud of, the entire Canary team — the people we work with every day that made this possible.

When we started, we set out on an ambitious vision in a large market. The hospitality industry is one of the largest in the world with IBIS estimating its total value at $1T. Despite its massive size, the hospitality industry has been slow to adopt technology… until the last few years when competition from short-term rentals (i.e. AirBnb, Sonder, etc.) became tangible. An industry that never really had competition has now had to battle alternate lodging products that were born in the “age of technology.” 

We knew, given our backgrounds, we could empower the industry with best-in-class technology and this was a shot worth taking.  From the get go, we recognized that a rip-and-replace approach to core parts of the hotel tech stack would be a tough pill for many hoteliers to swallow. So, we decided to start small — by helping hotels fill the gaps legacy systems had left and address overlooked areas in the guest experience. 

In 2018, we launched our Digital Authorizations solution that was designed to help hoteliers reduce chargebacks and fraud with the intention to expand to additional parts of the hotel tech stack. It’s hard to forget the first hotel — a mid-size property in Portland, OR — that took a shot on trusting Canary’s solutions. A few years (and one global pandemic) later, Canary has expanded its product suite and is now utilized by thousands of hotels in more than 65 countries — including some of the most recognizable hotel brands in the world. 

The desire to help hotels provide these high-demand digital experiences for guests is what motivated us to start Canary and this latest round of funding will be used to drive our mission forward. 

When Gaurav and the F-Prime team approached us about potentially raising our Series A, we weren’t actively looking for funding. After getting to know the team and their extensive experience in hospitality, we realized that Gaurav’s team, amongst many other things, could help us see around corners as we scale a hotel technology company. We realized they were the right partner and it was the right time to raise capital. We were fortunate to also have Thayer Ventures and Commerce Ventures participate along with continued support from YC and Acronym. With this round of funding, we now have the resources to spend the next several years turning venture capital directly into valuable tools for hoteliers.

We plan to use the new funding to continue hiring aggressively to meet the needs of our growing customer base and invest in product development as we expand our breadth of offerings. We will continue to invest in our core competencies and ensure we are providing the most powerful features to our customers, across all of our solutions. Canary customers can look forward to an ever-diversifying product suite designed to meet and exceed the needs of hoteliers operating in today’s world.

We’re grateful to the thousands of hotel customers worldwide who have trusted Canary to help them improve the guest experience, streamline operations and increase their bottom line. Every day, we wake up realizing the full extent of trust you have placed in our company and we continuously strive to provide you with the same level of excellent service you provide to your guests.

Our team and customers mean the world to us and we look forward to continuing to provide you with the industry’s leading solutions for years to come. 

Thanks for the support,

Harman & SJ