INDEPENDENT-HOTEL services provider Zuzu Hospitality Solutions has raised US$3.7 million in Series A funding led by venture capital firm Wavemaker Partners, in a bid to drive its regional growth.

The Singapore-based company also operates in Indonesia and Taiwan, and will now expand to Thailand, Malaysia and Australia, it said.

Existing investors Golden Gate Ventures, Convergence Venture and Alpha JWC Ventures, as well as new investors, Access Ventures and Line Ventures participated in its latest funding round that closed in the fourth-quarter of 2018.

The company was founded in 2016, and bagged US$2 million in seed funding a year later to invest in its product development.

It is now seeking to expand in Asia-Pacific, and has appointed Jake Coleiro as its country manager for Australia, and Prae Wattanalapa as its country manager for Thailand. Both have prior work experience in online travel portal Expedia.

Zuzu delivers an outsourced yield management solution for independent hotels.

"Rather than dropping a piece of software on a hotel and expecting them to figure it out for themselves, we provide both the software and the service. We let hoteliers outsource their yield optimisation, so they can focus on hospitality and delivering a great experience day to day. We are also the only partner of independent hotels that delivers revenue upside for them, making us true hotel partners for the long term," said Zuzu co-founder Dan Lynn.

The company claims to help hotels deliver an average uplift of 30 per cent in online revenue by combining its "proprietary hotel operating system", with a service model delivered by "specialist revenue managers".

Zuzu also noted that there are more than 300,000 independent hoteliers globally, yet less than one in 10 use a revenue management software. According to the company, more than 10,000 of these independent hotels are in Thailand, while Malaysia and Australia have about 5,000 each.