Travefy Makes Its First Acquisition: Travel Startup Funding This Week

Let's start with some of the happenings on the travel tech startup scene. Travefy, an itinerary management and client communication platform, said this week that it has acquired for an undisclosed sum Los Angeles-based travel agent itinerary platform TripScope, which has been renamed and absorbed. Lincoln, Nebraska-based Travefy says that it has signed up more than 1,000 travel businesses, from individual advisors to large organizations like Travel and Transport, a part investor and also the fifth-largest U.S. travel management company. Travefy has raised $1.67 million since its founding in 2012. In other news, Stayzilla, India's biggest homestay startup, is shutting down to "reboot" and "change business models." Stayzilla had raised about $34 million across four rounds of funding, including a round in May. The company will focus now on building tools for the supply side of homestays. (See our story.) In other grim news, the Wall Street Journal reports that Swedish investment group Kinnevik is halving its holding in Rocket Internet, an investment vehicle that has funded many startups that have turned out to be unprofitable. Some Rocket Internet businesses that ar