Håvar Bauck is a Norwegian-born traveltech entrepreneur, based in Nairobi, Kenya.

He is the founder of HotelOnline, which he launched with Endre Opdal in 2014.^[1][2] He is also known for his role in Savanna Sunrise,^[3] as well as other technology startups and scale-ups focused on African markets.

Bauck grew up in Norway and Belgium. He attended the Lycée Français de Belgique Jean Monet and later Lycée Français René Cassin d'Oslo, where he graduated in 1996.

After completing his military conscription service at Andøya Air Station, he went on to pursue a Master's degree in Business and Economics at the BI Norwegian Business School.

Upon completing his education, Bauck was selected for an exchange program by AIESEC, sponsored by Norec.^[4] This brought him to Kenya in 2002 and 2003, where he was seconded to the Kenya Investment Authority. After completing the exchange program, he launched his Nairobi-based consulting firm, Biashara Consulting, but moved back to Oslo in 2005 to join Norwegian tech startup IPdrum.^[5][6] In 2006, he was recruited to the British/Norwegian tech scale-up Vyke^[7] as their VP Sales Africa. In 2010, he helped Nairobi-based Kyoto Energy raise funds for their commercial launch, and briefly worked with the company before joining Upstream in 2011. He initially worked from Nairobi as Upstream's regional representative, before moving to Lagos in 2012 to launch the company's Nigeria office.

In late 2013, Bauck launched Nairobi Airport Hotel, a serviced apartments hotel next to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport together with his business partner Endre Opdal^[8][1]. Nairobi Airport Hotel was the first budget accommodation next to the airport, and a pioneer in online hotel marketing in Kenya^[8]. Following the initial commercial success, Bauck and Opdal launched Savanna Sunrise in 2014, to provide solutions for e-commerce and digital marketing to hotels in emerging markets.^[3][8] After growing rapidly in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, Bauck and Opdal initiated merger talks with Nigerian competitor HotelOga in 2017, but called off the process after a due diligence showed that the envisaged merger was not viable.^[10][9] The merger process, however, had already been widely covered in the Nigerian and Kenyan press.^[12][13] HotelOga collapsed shortly thereafter, prompting Bauck and Opdal to acquire HotelOga's closely associated, but separate technology partner Hotel Online Sp. z.o.o in Poland.^[14][11] In the process, they rebranded Savanna Sunrise to HotelOnline, and launched new operations in the Nigerian market.^[15] In 2018, HotelOnline acquired Nordic hotel booking site Cityhotels^[22] and Senegalese traveltech startup Teranga Solutions^[2][8]

Bauck and Opdal are known as the first entrepreneurs in Africa to have successfully carried out an equity crowdfunding.^[15]

In June 2019, Bauck was also appointed Chairman of Kenyan traveltech startup Cloud9XP, while announcing their merger with Kenyan tours and travel startup Heartbeat Adventures.^[16][17]

In 2018, Bauck launched the Kaleidoscope Africa nonprofit initiative jointly with Nairobi-based entrepreneurs Joram Mwinamo, Preben Wik and Jesper Hörnberg.

The initiative is aimed at promoting entrepreneurship in Kenya, and connecting startups with investors.^[18][19]

Bauck appeared at the Kenya National Theatre in 2003, in the South African musical Sarafina, playing the role of an apartheid regime policeman during the 1976 Soweto uprising. He later also appeared in the then-popular TV show Reflections on KBC as Ted.

Håvar Bauck is the grandson of Norwegian WW2 resistance fighter and Auschwitz survivor Erling Bauck, and the great-great grandson of Norwegian general Ivar Bauck.