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“What we’re doing is accretive to the ecosystem, it’s driving more people to check-in and it’s creating a real incentive layer, a real value…for a mainstream user,” he says. “The number of check-ins happening at our partner properties is dramatically higher versus before Topguest existed, I think we’ve seen something like a 400% increase of geo-location check-ins at Standard Hotels since our program launched about four weeks ago versus the previous four weeks… Users are inviting like two friends on average to join Topguest, something like 70% of the people who visit the site join.”

While there does seem to be a tight correlation between a Topguest partnership and increased check-ins, the site will need to expand rapidly in the coming months in order to add significant value for their hotel partners. Currently, there are 10,000 members.

In addition, there is always the concern that a primary check-in service, like Foursquare, or another player like Facebook will try to enter their market and directly compete with Topguest for those lucrative travel rewards partnerships. While Lewis has not ruled out the possibility, he believes Topguest is more of an ally to check-in services because it encourages consumer usage. Topguest, he says, also has an advantage because it is a neutral party and can accept check-ins from so many different platforms.

That may sound like PR fluff but there’s some evidence that he’s not alone in his thinking. In June, they raised a seed round of $350,000 with Conway, Founders Fund, Keith Rabois, Jeff Clavier, Kal Vepuri and Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir. Thus, Topguest shares an investor with Foursquare, SV Angel’s Ron Conway, and an investor with Gowalla, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. Topguest is not profitable yet, but it’s on the brink of raising another round. According to reports, Topguest is currently on track to raise over one million with their Series A round, which will reportedly include many of the same investors (and will close by the end of this summer).

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