Skift Take

We agree with Gil Beyda, founder of Genacast Ventures, who says that managed travel is starving for innovation. Whether or not Rocketrip is ultimately successful, the startup finds itself in the right place at the right time.

Rocketrip, a startup geared to help corporations trying to limit out-of-policy employee-travel bookings, took in $2.6 million in a Series A funding round.

The funding, which the company plans to use to accelerate software and product development, was led by Canaan Partners with participation from Genacast Ventures and others. With $3.2 million in total funding to date, previous funding came from Genacast Ventures, Y Combinator and angels.

With travel and expense company Concur enabling open booking for clients and American Express, among others, trying to gamify managed-travel bookings to engender compliance with corporate travel policies, Rocketrip fits right in with a platform to incentivize employees for good behavior by enabling them to share in the cost-savings they generate in their travel plans.

Rocketrip appears to be geared toward unmanaged or lightly managed travel programs, although founder and CEO Dan Ruch says its platform can work “in parallel” with larger, managed travel programs

The company says it helped corporations save around $200 per trip during three months of testing.

Employees that help companies by doing things such as booking flights far in advance earn points that can be redeemed for gift cards or cash.

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Tags: business travel, rocketrip

Photo credit: Rocketrip hopes to incentivize travelers to book travel that saves their companies money. Picutred is Amtrak's Southwest Chief, seen here pulling into Kansas City's Union Station October 25, 2013. Fred Blocher / Kansas City Star/MCT

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