We are pleased to announce that Yada AI has raised a pre-seed round! This new investment was led by Voice Punch, an early stage voice-first venture capital firm. We are excited about this investment and the corresponding partnership and expertise it brings, as it will help us move even faster on our journey towards revolutionizing the vacation rental and hospitality industry.
Yada was launched in late 2018 to provide vacation rental hosts with a simple and intuitive way to utilize voice and AI in their vacation rentals, thereby saving time, maximizing efficiency, and driving more desirable reviews and bookings. What started out as a weekend project for our founder quickly turned into a platform which hundreds of rentals have been using to make the arduous process of hosting that much easier.
Many of those who decided to take advantage of their extra apartments or bedrooms to generate extra income and entrepreneurs who want to make a business in vacation rentals greatly underestimate the immense amount of time needed to manage guest engagements, touchpoints, and repetitive communications. These demands have turned hosting from a genuinely enjoyable experience into something which can best be described as a ‘grind’.
When we set out to raise capital, we looked for mentors and advisors who loved what we were doing, and who could help us quickly achieve our business goals. As an early stage startup, this continued mentorship and support in growing and scaling quickly will have a profound effect on the ambitious inroads we’re making in revolutionizing how guests communicate with their rentals and rooms. We are fortunate to be working with Marc Ladin at Voice Punch, an early investor in voice who’s advice has been invaluable in helping us navigate this rapidly expanding market and building a great business.
With this additional capital, we aim to make Yada AI the most capable, powerful, and useful rental communication platform. Hosts and property managers will benefit greatly by putting their hosting related engagement on autopilot, and by leveraging the amazing insights our platform is able to generate to help them improve their listings. Guests benefit through instantaneous access to the information they need, and immediate resolutions to questions or problems they have, eliminating what is otherwise a very frustrating choke-point in the Vacation Rental experience.
Big things are ahead for us, and we’re committed to building an amazing and useful platform!