Andrew Lockhead

Worth knowing

Andrew knows how creators actually earn from travel audiences, having built the rails that route more than 5,500 of them to Booking.com, Expedia and other OTAs. He has also raised a nine-figure growth round on Montreal terms and rebuilt a business after it lost almost all its revenue overnight. Founders in travel tech, affiliate or creator commerce, and anyone weighing a growth-equity round, should write.

Story

A native Montrealer, Andrew started building companies while still in business school at UQAM, co-founding the Quebec student ticketing platform StudentSphere in 2011. In 2016 he and Hamed Al-Khabbaz launched Stay22 and took it through FounderFuel, then MT Lab, selling affiliate accommodation bookings around in-person events. That model disappeared in 2020, when the pandemic wiped out ninety percent of revenue. Andrew rebuilt the company around creators monetizing travel content instead of venues, and revenue grew more than tenfold by the end of 2024. Stay22 now reports annual recurring revenue between $70 million and $100 million CAD, and Andrew still runs it from Montreal.

Highlights

• CEO and co-founder, Stay22 (founded 2016, Montreal)
• Closed US$122M growth investment from Summit Partners, 2026
• EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Canada 2024, Quebec region
• Co-founder, StudentSphere (2011-2016; acquired by Groubook)
• BBA, Université du Québec à Montréal