Siris rooms is interesting - it's pretty much what most startups in India are building towards. Like the billion dollar OyoRooms (Lightspeed), Fabhotels(Accel),

Siris rooms is interesting - it's pretty much what most startups in India are building towards. Like the billion dollar OyoRooms (Lightspeed), Fabhotels(Accel), GoIbiboRooms (Naspers). This model works well in countries where the law and order situation does not permit for a Airbnb to flourish. The problem is that soon you will need to reserve rooms to work with these hotels - and here comes the differentiation in approach: some startups will just reserve 1 room in a hotel, and will not have enough of a stick to control quality ( http://yourstory.com/2016/04/oyo-customer-service/ http://yourstory.com/2016/04/oyo-customer-service/ ) or will book sizeable number of rooms in fewer hotels and so will grow slower (by orders of magnitude). However as a model, I think it can work in Africa. EDIT : I think YC has a lot of experience around Airbnb (working with regulators and in the product space of hotel bookings). They could bring some serious value to the founders and really accelerate the learning curve for them.