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Former Marriott Execs Raise $3 Million in Seed Funding for Hotel Booking Site


Skift Take

This is filled with so many people from the same team that it appears there's a very specific problem Marriott has that it wasn't able to solve in-house.

A hotel booking startup, Imagine If, says it raised $3 million in seed funding from former Marriott executives, among others.

The funding announcement by the Washington, D.C.-based startup coincides with the launch of its second hotel product, StayFaster.com, which is geared toward streamling the booking process with features such as one-click cancellation for the frequent business traveler.

Imagine If says it raised the $3 million seed round from Chris Zoladz, who formerly led a team at Marriott tasked with privacy protection; former Marriott CIO Carl Wilson, and Scott Bedbury, formerly chief marketing officer at Starbucks. A spokesperson says Imagine If is "in the midst" of a Series A round.

Imagine If founder and CEO John Hart, formerly an IT project manager at Marriott, says the company, which also offers a hotel-booking app, StayAtHand, is in line for $1 million in convertible debt from crowd-funding platform Veteran Crowd.

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