This, then, is where it starts. Every startup is a journey of thousands of serpentine miles, and Skift’s officially starts today.

Skift is a travel intelligence media company that will offer news, insight, data, tools, and services to the professionals in travel industry and professional business travelers, to help them make smarter decisions about travel.

What you see now, Skift.com, is just the first phase of this: a B2B news and info site for the travel industry. Skift.com is our worldview on how broadly we look at travel, and it informs how we’re building the company.

To help us along, we’ve raised about half million dollars in angel funding, from an amazing group of media-tech angels, including Chris Ahearn, Luke Beatty, Gordon Crovitz, Craig Forman, Jim Friedlich, Tom Glocer, Vishal Gondal, Jason Hirschhorn, Peter Horan, Dave Lerner, Alan Meckler, Mohamed Nanabhay, Sanjay Parthasarathy, Amol Sarva, Chris Schroeder, and three unnamed investors.

They believe in us, the founders, and believe in our larger vision. It is an eclectic, global group of business execs and entrepreneurs who’ve made their mark on the digital information and media world in their own ways.

THE REASON FOR SKIFT

The state of travel is a bit like this picture I took in March in the jungles of the island of Moheli in Indian Ocean: complex, interconnected, and intertwined with almost every sector in the world. At $2 trillion GDP a year and 100 million jobs, travel — tourism, hospitality, and transport — is one of the world’s largest industries and certainly the largest employer. While digital has disrupted distribution and information systems, no information brand has emerged that matches the industry’s size with its digital potential.

Skift will do this. Whether it’s through news, insight, data, and services, we aim to be the pervasive brand when it comes to travel information. We believe we’re creating a new breed of media information company that’s designed to appeal to both professionals and professional users, and we hope that you’ll agree.

Rafat Ali                                                    Jason Clampet    
Founder, CEO, Skift                                Co-founder, Head of Content, Skift 

We decided against doing a traditional press release. Instead we went with a Factsheet, where we wrote out all possible useful information any journalist/blogger/user/potential partner would need, including our list of amazing investors. So here you go:

Skift Factsheet