Onde Ficar Raises $2M to Expand Software for Booking Hotel Rooms

"Where to Stay" and "Always Your Best Place"

Just in time for this summer’s 2014 FIFA World Cup soccer tournament in Brazil, San Diego-based Onde Ficar says it has raised $2 million in a Series A funding round to build out its Web-based applications for marketing and managing small and medium-sized hotels.

Onde Ficar, which means “Where to Stay” in Portuguese, is initially targeting hotels in Brazil, where the company says online infrastructure for booking rooms lags behind other countries. While 75 percent of all travel bookings are made via the Internet globally, Onde Ficar says only about 2 million out of 30 million monthly reservations are completed online in Brazil.

Investors include David Kloeppel, the former president of Gaylord Entertainment (NYSE: [[ticker:GET]]), Joe Maxwell, the CEO of Shareholder InSite, the Nashville Capital Network (NCN) Angel Fund II and affiliated investors. Kloeppel also has joined Onde Ficar’s board as chairman.

Onde Ficar estimates that more than 3.3 million tourists are expected to visit Brazil for the 2014 World Cup and the XXXI Olympic Summer Games in 2016.

Onde Ficar CEO Adam Harris tells me by phone that Onde Ficar began under an agreement between the Brazilian Hotel Federation and Digital Arbitrage, a San Diego-based firm Harris founded to develop hospitality applications that enable hotels to offer available rooms to travelers worldwide. The Brazilian Hotel Federation, which is comprised of about 20,000 hotels in Brazil, does not have a stake in Onde Ficar, he added.

Digital Arbitrage, founded in 2012 by Harris and Richard Castle, is the same entity as Onde Ficar, Harris explained. With the Series A funding, Harris says Onde Ficar has essentially become the operating company and brand identity, even as the firm expands its focus in coming years from South America to the United States.

"Just fill in the form and we'll contact you."
“Just fill in the form and we’ll contact you.”

“Our goal is to improve access and exposure for the Brazilian hotel industry using the latest Internet technologies and booking trends in a simple, yet powerful, software package,” Onde Ficar Harris said in a statement.

Kloeppel added, “This influx of capital combined with a dedicated management team and seasoned board of directors position Onde Ficar to make a significant impact in the Brazilian travel market.”

The startup plans to roll out its software as an easy-to-implement and inexpensive tool that enables small- and medium-sized hotels to compete with global hospitality chains. Harris says he doesn’t plan to translate “Onde Ficar” in English-speaking markets, saying acceptance should grow over time—and besides, the name makes about as much sense as Yahoo or Zillow.

The company’s motto, “Sempre O Su Melhor Lugar” might need a translation, though. Google translator tells me it means “Always Your Best Place.”

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.