Digital Marketing platform, HotelOnlineacquires Kenyan leisure marketplace, Cloud9xp.

Digital marketing platform, HotelOnline has acquired Kenyan leisure marketplace Cloud9xp in a share swap deal to enable the startup to become the B2C channel of the Africa-focused hotel-booking platform.

Cloud9xp.com is an online marketplace and booking service for leisure experiences located in Nairobi, Kenya.

Last year, Cloud9xp merged with Heartbeat Adventures, retaining its brand, while the original founders started focusing on retail-tech startup MarketForce, with Cloud9xp part of the broader Mesozi Group.

Increasing its scope to add flight and hotel booking services, Cloud9xp has now been procured by HotelOnline as part of a share swap deal.

On the other hand, HotelOnline which was founded in 2014, is an e-commerce and digital marketing platform for hotels that have helped over 1,500 hotels across 18 markets in Africa and the Middle East to increase their revenues.

In an interview with Disrupt Africa, co-founder, Tesh Mbaabu said, the Cloud9xp team was being absorbed into HotelOnline, but its brand would continue to exist and run as the B2C channel of HotelOnline, which until now has been primarily B2B-focused.

Furthermore, Managing Director of Cloud9xp, Winnie Kamathi said, “We would like to extend a special thanks to all of our customers and partners who have supported us, advised us, given us priceless feedback, and allowed us to build the largest leisure experience marketplace in Africa. We will be working on more things at HotelOnline, and will continue to make Cloud9 services available to everyone.”

Cloud9xp was launched in 2013 by second-year college friends Emmanuel Miriti and Tesh Mbaabu in Kenya while HotelOnline also known as Savanna Sunrise Ltd was founded in 2014 by Endre Opdal and Håvar Bauck in Dubai.