The round is led by Sansiri, one of Thailand's largest premium real estate developers, and Gaw Capital, a Hong Kong-based global hospitality real estate investor. Existing backers DN Capital, Ventech, and DSGCP also participated.

Hostmaker, a Serviced Apartment Awards winner, was founded in 2014 by Nakul Sharma, and is described as a tech-driven hospitality management company.

It is growing at a rate of 400 per cent year-on-year and currently operates in London, Paris, Rome and Barcelona. The new round of investment will support continued tech development in "proprietary pricing and operations applications," as well as growth and expansion beyond Europe, with a particular focus on Asia.

"We were the first ones to spot the opportunity because of my deep research into Airbnb's impact on hotels. None of the founders of other companies bring this background and hence they seem to be building more opportunistic businesses that are more akin to property management companies while our ambition is to build a 'Hilton for Homes': a premium branded homestay hospitality service that cares about the home, the homeowner and the guests," said Sharma.