Virdee is a software-as-a-service company headquartered in Austin, Texas, that provides an all-in-one guest experience solution. We go beyond just check-in and check-out by providing pre-arrival communications, secure identity verification, room upgrades, room service ordering, and much more. The entire experience is contactless, letting guests decide how they want to interact with a property.
With web, app, and kiosk options, Virdee puts access and amenities at guests’ fingertips while unlocking new revenue streams and reducing costs. And thanks to a user-friendly dashboard, we make life a lot easier for hotel staff as well.
How did you come up with the idea for the company?
My fellow co-founder, Nadav Cornberg and I launched Virdee April 1 of 2020 after realizing that the hospitality market lacked a software solution that fully connected guests to properties.
We were actually tasked with finding such a solution for our previous employer. Check-in solutions are pretty common, but a true front-of-house hub that also makes life easier for the hoteliers was lacking. With Nadav’s amazing coding skills, we have been able to set Virdee apart as a hub that integrates with nearly any payment, lock, and PMS provider on the market. We see Virdee as a Swiss Army knife, able to adapt as needed and adding features as we grow.
More from Interviews
- Meet Tobie Morgan Hitchcock, CEO & Co-Founder Of SurrealDB
- Meet Stephen Kines, COO And Co-Founder Of Goldilock
- Meet Henry Wilkinson, Co-Founder at Drop-in, Ahead Of The Opening Of Drop-in Richmond
- Meet Oli Cook, CEO and Founder of ekko.
- Meet Marko Maras, CEO and Founder of Trustfull
- Meet Jeff Warren, Chief Technology Officer at Netwrix
- Evgeny Filichkin, Investment Advisor at Keytom & FinTech50 Judge, Tells Us What He’s Looking For From Entrants
- Tracy Prandi-Yuen, VP, Global Partnerships at Boku Inc. & FinTech50 Judge, Tells Us What She’s Looking For From Entrants
How has the company evolved over the last couple of years?
Virdee started with a team of five working for sweat equity. We had this vision and decided we were going to make it work. Since then, we’ve grown to about 50 employees worldwide and have raised $9 million in seed funding. We initially launched with only an app and quickly realized that most of our clients also wanted a kiosk option, mainly to provide key cards without requiring staff to be present. We’ve expanded from the US to having active clients in Europe and Asia as well.
To really address 100% of guests, we also added a web option, and we’re currently launching some cool custom-designed functionality for a large upcoming client. We’ve really enjoyed the close work with our clients most of all. They’re the ones who have helped turn Virdee into what it is today.
What can we hope to see from Virdee in the future?
Without divulging too much about our plans, you’ll see an ever-growing suite of software partners that Virdee will work with as we continue to grow what we can offer clients in a single app. We’re going to make it easier for smaller properties to launch Virdee technology and have slimmed-down options for more flexibility.
Apple and Google are working on getting hotel keys into their respective wallets, and we believe that will shift acceptance of digital keys into overdrive. Looking far down the road, we see a future where kiosks are no longer needed and everyone is 100% digital, with everything done on the cell phone. We will make sure that Virdee is a leader in that transformation.
