Travel Startup Funding This Week: $12 Million on Nomadic Workers

Each week we create a roundup of travel startups that have received or announced funding that week. The total amount raised this week among companies we tracked was $27.8 million.

Here are five companies that announced they raised funding this week. You can see previous roundups here.

>>Remote Year, which lets users spend a year working and traveling in 12 cities around the world, raised a $12 million Series A, its first funding round, from new investors Highland Capital Partners, WeWork Labs co-founder Jesse Middleton, and Airbnb co-founder and CTO Nathan Blecharczyk. Remote Year participants make a $5,000 downpayment and also pay $2,000 a month for the first 11 months, which covers travel, living accommodations and a workspace with an Internet connection. Some 25,000 people applied to participate in the first group of 75 two years ago, for example.

>>HolidayMe raised a $7 million Series A round from new investors Accel Partners and F&C Overseas Investment and existing investor Al Sanie Group. This is the Dubui, UAE-based startup’s second funding round after raising a $4 million Series A round in January 2015. The company offers vacation packages to Middle East travelers. The site currently offers about 100,000 hotels and more than 8,000 activities.

>>London-based Flypay raised a $4.3 million Series A round from UK food delivery service Just Eat, bringing its total funding to $16.8 million. Founded in 2013, the mobile app lets users pay and split their bills, order meals and pay at the bar while connecting all of those touch points of the restaurant experience. It also helps restaurants with revenue management and improving efficiencies.

>>Wine ‘n Dine raised a $2.5 million seed round, its first funding round, from new investors Chetrit Group, Jordache Ventures and Melo7 Tech Partners LLC. The company is based in New York City and was founded in June 2015. It’s a restaurant reviews mobile app that focuses on showing users food photos rather than written text.

>>Eat, a restaurant reservations mobile app for Bahrain and Dubai, raised a $2 million venture round from undisclosed investors. That brings the Manama, Bahrain-based startup’s total funding to $2.4 million. Eat also helps restaurants with reservation and revenue management.