Skift Take
Considering all the activity in the sector, there's a notable absence of booking sites and tours and activities companies.
This morning the Wall Street Journal published a list of startups valued at $1 billion or greater, and then turned to Twitter to tweet out each entry, one by one.
To save readers the time needed to comb through the list of 70+ entries, we’ve pulled out the five travel brands included in the list.
The travel entries are dominated by e-hail transport companies, with the U.S.’s Uber at the top — it ranks only second overall in the Journal’s rankings — and Ola Cabs of India and Grabtaxi of Singapore near the bottom. Uber has had no challenges raising money over the past year. Just yesterday it expanded a round from $600 million to $1 billion in order to accommodate investors eager to take part.
Airbnb is also near the top, overall, sandwiched between Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart and cloud storage provider Dropbox. Also included in the list is Deem, formerly Rearden Commerce. Launched in 1999, Deem manages a platform to sell travel and related services for corporate travel clients including American Express, Carlson Wagonlit Travel, and Travel Leaders, and competes directly with SAS’s Concur.
| Company | Latest Valuation | Total Equity Funding | Last Valuation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Uber | $41.2 billion | $2.8 billion | December 2014 |
| Airbnb | $10 billion | $800 million | April 2014 |
| Deem | $1.4 billion | $474 million | September 2011 |
| Ola Cabs | $1 billion | $277 million | October 2014 |
| Grabtaxi | $1 billion | $340 million | December 2014 |
The Daily Newsletter
Our daily coverage of the global travel industry. Written by editors and analysts from across Skift’s brands.
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Photo credit: Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb, smiles during a session at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos January 23, 2014. Denis Balibouse / Reuters