Kenyan HotelOnline consolidates with the acquisition of Kenyan travel startup, Cloud9xp

Kenyan HotelOnline has acquired Cloud9xp, an online marketplace, booking service and distributor for leisure experiences. This is essentially a share swap deal which would see Cloud9xp essentially become the B2C channel of the Africa-focused hotel-booking platform.

Cloud9xp was founded in 2013 by Mesongo Sibuti and Tesh Mbaabu. It merged with another travel startup, HeartBeat Ventures in 2019, while retaining its brand.

Founded in 2014 by two Norwegians, Håvar Bauck and Endre Opdal, in Nairobi, Kenya, HotelOnline is a leading e-commerce and digital marketing enabler for hotels in Emerging Markets. It has helped more than 1,500 hotels across 18 markets in Africa and the Middle East increase their online revenues.

The relationship between the two companies started way back when Håvar Bauck became the Chairman of Cloud9xp after advising the company for a while.

According to Mbaabu, the Cloud9xp’s team would be absorbed by HotelOnline but the brand name would be maintained

“We would like to extend a special thanks to all of our customers and partners who have supported us, advised us, given us priceless feedback, and allowed us to build the largest leisure experience marketplace in Africa. We will be working on more things at HotelOnline, and will continue to make Cloud9 services available to everyone,” said Winnie Kamathi, Cloud9xp’s managing director

HotelOnline is clearly growing to be the clear leader in the travel industry as it has been strategically acquiring a lot of companies in its space across Africa. It recently acquired Africa Bookings, a B2B African hotel wholesaler that contracts directly with hotels and lodges in Africa, in May 2020. In 2018, HotelOnline acquired Senegalese traveltech company, Teranga Solutions, expanding their foothold into Francophone Africa. It merged with Savanna Sunrise Ltd. in 2017 with the merged entity operating the name HotelOnline.