Israeli Startup Mize Revolutionizes Online Hotel Booking with Financial Market Algorithms

Three months after the ceasefire, tourism is rapidly recovering, with airports in Abu Dhabi and Dubai bustling ahead of the summer travel season. Israeli tech company Mize, founded by Dor Krovinir and Omri Litbak, reports record hotel bookings and a full return to normalcy. Mize operates an online exchange platform for trading hotel room inventory and flight tickets, serving major travel sites like Booking.com and Hotels.com, as well as global travel agencies.

Mize was quietly acquired about two years ago by South Korean travel giant Yanolja, a SoftBank portfolio company, in a deal valued between $250 million and $300 million. The founders, Krovinir, Litbak, and Guy Levitan, achieved a notable exit after raising only $15 million from investors including Noam Lanir, the British Flashpoint fund, and Chinese Alibaba. The company employs around 130 people across offices in Tel Aviv, Spain, Argentina, and India.

Yanolja dominates about 70% of the Korean market and has aggressively expanded by acquiring over 15 companies. Mize serves as the technological core of the group, developing advanced algorithms that optimize hotel pricing and inventory management. These algorithms apply financial market principles, such as risk management and algo-trading, to the tourism sector, where prices fluctuate dynamically like financial assets.

The acquisition originated unexpectedly at a conference in Miami when the Mize founders proactively engaged a Yanolja representative who was initially unavailable for a meeting. Both founders have backgrounds in capital markets and recognized parallels between options trading and hotel room bookings, leading them to create an algorithmic trading model for tourism.

Mize’s technology forecasts price behavior and executes real-time trades to optimize profits and savings for travel platforms, which in turn pass benefits to consumers. The company’s revenue model is based on profit sharing, rewarding growth in client savings. The founders emphasize the shift from forecast-based decisions to real-time, AI-driven booking strategies, reflecting changing traveler behaviors and expectations.

The story highlights a rare Israeli tech success with a lean startup approach, significant financial returns for founders, and integration into a major Asian travel conglomerate, illustrating the growing influence of AI and financial technology in the global tourism industry.