Founder Of The Week: Felix Undeutsch

• Felix Undeutsch is the co-founder and CEO of hivr.ai, an AI-powered platform helping hotels and event venues automate meetings and group sales processes, from proposal generation to lead qualification and customer enquiries.
• With more than 15 years of experience in travel technology, Felix previously led meetings and group sales automation initiatives at Expedia and meetago, giving him first-hand insight into the challenges facing the hospitality industry.
• He launched hivr.ai after recognising how much of the meetings and events sector still relied on manual processes, despite advances in automation across the wider travel industry.
• Under his leadership, hivr.ai has secured backing from travel technology giant Amadeus and works with major hospitality brands, helping them improve response times, increase conversion rates and streamline sales operations through AI.

Tell Me About Yourself and hivr.ai

I’m Felix Undeutsch, co-founder and CEO of hivr.ai, an AI-native platform automating meetings and group sales for hotels and event venues. I’ve spent over 15 years in B2B travel tech and innovation, leading meetings and group sales automation at Expedia and meetago group – so I’ve seen firsthand how outdated this part of the industry is.

At hivr.ai, we’re transforming a $400bn global market that still runs on inboxes, spreadsheets, and manual work. Our platform automates pricing logic, availability checks, proposal generation, follow-ups, and even voice enquiries via our AI phone agent, Mandy. The result is faster responses, higher conversion, and sales teams freed up to focus on relationships and guest experience instead of admin.

What Inspired You To Start hivr.ai, and What Problem Were You Trying To Solve?

While at Expedia, I had to organise a simple team offsite and it was a mess. Endless emails, hotels ghosting me, and proposals landing too late to be useful. I was super frustrated, but what shocked me was seeing these hotel teams drowning in admin. I worked in travel tech and so much of travel had already been automated. How was this still unsolved?

When I investigated, the problem was obvious. Meetings and groups drive roughly a third of hotel room nights, yet proposals often take 48–96 hours, by which point win rates collapse. I took it to leadership and led Expedia’s first push into meetings and groups. We learned quickly why it had been left behind: complexity. That’s why I co-founded hivr.ai – to automate the grind, move faster, and let sales teams focus on selling, not chasing inboxes.

What Has Been Your Biggest Challenge So Far, and How Did You Overcome It?

The hospitality industry is rightly cautious about AI when it touches revenue, client relationships and brand integrity, so we had to build trust in the technology from day one. Rather than black-box automation, we focused on transparency, control and outcomes – using AI to free teams from repetitive work, not replace them.

Instead of promising magic, we proved value through measurable results such as faster response times, fewer manual hours and higher conversion. Early pilots with forward-thinking partners such as Radisson Hotel Group and Minor Hotel Group and demonstrated impact in real operating environments. Once teams could see exactly what the technology was doing, and the results it delivered, scepticism turned into confidence and adoption accelerated.

Can You Describe a Pivotal Moment That Significantly Shaped the Direction of hivr.ai?

Securing strategic investment from Amadeus was a major turning point for us. Beyond capital, it validated the scale and importance of the problem we’re solving and confirmed that our AI-led approach was both practical and globally relevant.

The partnership opened doors to deeper integrations across the hospitality technology ecosystem and accelerated our product roadmap. It also pushed us to think bigger, beyond automating individual tasks, but about fundamentally transforming how meetings and group sales operate across channels like phone, email, websites, and third-party platforms.

How Do You Define Success?

For your business: Becoming the trusted standard for meetings and group sales automation in hospitality. If hotels and venues can respond faster, convert more enquiries, and free their teams from repetitive manual work, we know we’re delivering real value.

As a founder:  Building a company that stays at the forefront of a rapidly evolving AI landscape while using technology to genuinely empower people to learn, adapt, and work smarter. I want to create a trusted, safe culture where ambitious and passionate people lead innovation that shapes the future of work, pushes boundaries and delivers amazing results.

What Advice Would You Give To Someone Thinking About Launching Their Own Startup?

You need to fall in love with the problem, not the solution. Technology is just a tool. Real impact comes from deeply understanding the pain your customers live with every day, then building only what solves it. Listen, ship, listen again, and iterate fast. The best products are almost never right the first time – they earn their edge through feedback, hard lessons, and constant adjustment. Solve the real problem well, and the tech will take care of itself.

What’s Next for hivr.ai? Any Exciting Developments We Should Watch Out For?

After a period of testing and learning, we’re now focused on scaling automation across meetings and group sales. This year is about accelerating impact by expanding our AI capabilities and deepening integrations across the hospitality tech stack.

We’re about to launch hivr 10x, a new platform built for speed, enabling us to ship innovation far faster, starting with instant pricing and smarter lead qualification. This has resulted in a huge change to the way we operate where now humans and AI agents are side-by-side, naturally collaborating.

Growth is also being fuelled through integration partnerships we have with sales and catering systems like Backyou and Delphi, making hivr.ai the most connected platform in meetings and groups sales. A major upcoming milestone is our partnership with global sales and catering platform iVvy, where hivr.ai powers iVvy’s new Instant Proposal capability, now live at Edgbaston Stadium in the UK.

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Founder’s 5 with Felix Undeutsch

To find out more about the founder behind hivr.ai, we put Felix Undeutsch in the hot seat for our exclusive Founders’ 5.

Favourite business tool

NotebookLM from Google. It helps me get across complex topics quickly and spot the useful insights without disappearing down rabbit holes.

One lesson you learned the hard way?

There are always more ideas than time, people, or money. You have to prioritise ruthlessly. If you want to make everyone happy, sell ice cream. But as a founder, most of the job is saying no and focusing on what genuinely moves the needle.

One future trend you’re watching?

The shift from doing the work yourself to orchestrating it. One person managing multiple AI agents is becoming normal and that changes productivity, team structures, and especially what entry-level roles look like. It raises some big questions about how we all work now and will work in the future.

One quote you live by

I don’t live by a single quote. I just don’t believe in having a “work version” of myself and a “home version” of myself. One person, one operating system.

One book/podcast you recommend

“Inspired” by Marty Cagan. Straight-talking, practical, and a good reset on what it actually means to build great products.

Want to be featured as TechRound’s Founder of the Week? Know someone who deserves to be recognised as a founder making waves in the startup landscape? Find out more about this weekly feature and how to get involved here.