Amsterdam does not usually shout. It hums. On January 22, 2026, that hum turned into a Mews. A sharp one. The kind you hear when something long built quietly suddenly clears its throat and the room notices. Mews, the hospitality operating system founded in Prague and headquartered in Amsterdam, locked in a $300 million Series D at a $2.5 billion valuation. EQT Growth led it, with Atomico and HarbourVest Partners stepping in, while Kinnevik, Battery Ventures, and Tiger Global doubled down. Nine figures of conviction for a company that has spent a decade listening to an industry that was tired of talking to itself.
The origin story matters here because it explains the tempo. Richard Valtr was not trying to start a software company in 2012. He was trying to build a hotel that did not feel like a bureaucracy with a bed. Working on the Emblem Hotel exposed the real problem. Hospitality was running on legacy systems that treated guests like entries in a ledger. What began as an idea to remove the front desk turned into a decision to replace the brain behind it. Less desk, more dialogue. Less noise, more signal. That philosophy still echoes in the product.
Matt Welle joined early with Hilton scars and frontline clarity, then took the CEO role in 2017. Since then, Mews has grown to more than 15,000 properties across 85 countries, processing $19.7 billion in platform transaction volume in 2025 alone. SaaS gross profit climbed 55 percent. This is not vanity growth. This is usage. Forty two million check ins running through software designed to get out of the way. The Mews is not loud. It is constant.
This new capital pushes the message further. Artificial intelligence moves from feature to foundation. Embedded payments go deeper into the guest journey. North America and Europe get more attention, more people, more pace. Michael Coscetta, President, brings scale muscle from Compass and Square. Naomi Trickey keeps the culture intact as headcount passes 1,200. Kirk Lepke joins the board from EQT Growth with long memory of the business and fresh responsibility for where it goes next.
What separates Mews is not that it does everything. It is that everything talks to each other. PMS, POS, payments, revenue management, kiosks, and Spaces that turn hotels into places that earn all day, not just overnight. The platform processed nearly $20 billion last year because hotels trusted it to listen, decide, and act without friction. Agentic AI is the next verse. Systems that anticipate demand, staffing, pricing, and guest needs before someone has to ask.
The hospitality industry is enormous and historically quiet about its technology. Mews is changing that tone. Not with slogans. With receipts. More than $900 million raised to date. Recognition as Best PMS three years running. Real revenue delivered to operators who want fewer screens and more human moments. The sound you hear now is not hype. It is momentum tuning up, and it is not done speaking.
