Booking Tech Platform Triptease Raises $9 Million: Travel Startup Funding This Week

Each week we round up travel startups that have recently received or announced funding. The total raised this week was more than $19 million in confirmed fresh funding.

>>Triptease, a London-based hotel technology startup, has raised $9 million in Series B funding, led by new investor BGF Ventures. Past investors, who have helped it raise more than $9 million before, include Notion Capital and Episode 1 Ventures, which also participated in this latest round.

Triptease will use some of the fresh capital to double its employee numbers across its London and New York offices and to open an office in Singapore.

The startup says that 17,000 hotels are using its software platform, to date. Its software aims to help hotels boost the number of customers who book directly through the engines on their websites and apps — as a cheaper channel than using third-party aggregators.

One year ago, Triptease received legal warnings from Booking.com to cease and desist from what the consumer reservations giant called unlawful accessing of its data. Triptease would display rates in a price comparison widget that it would install on hotel sites. The issue has since been dropped.

Triptease says its revenue has grown by 1,000 percent over the last six quarters, and that it has around 10 times the number of customers as any of its competitors, which include TravelTripper, Milestone, and Vizergy. The company says that one of the keys to its success in signing up hotels has been in holding live workshops in various locations.

>>Bizzabo, which aims to become “the Salesforce for events,” has raised $6.5 million in Series A funding. Strategic investors, Zvi Limon, Avigdor Willenz, and Danny Tocatly led the round. Past investors, such as LionBird and Kaedan Capital, also participated.

The investment brings Bizzabo’s total funding to $14.5 million. The company says its customers include GE, Virgin, USAA, and the Lean Startup and Bizzabo aims to manage and grow their corporate events. Located in Tel Aviv and New York, the company was founded in 2012.

In the past couple of years, there has been consolidation in the event management software sector, estimated by market research firm Forrester as a $28 billion a year opportunity. In December 2015, Cvent acquired Alliance Tech, an event measurement service for corporate events. In June 2016, Etouches acquired Zentila, a hospitality and meetings booking solution platform.

>>DCS Plus, a travel technology company based in Bucharest, has received additional funding, thanks to an investment round led by Credo Ventures. The amount was not disclosed.

The fresh capital adds to an investment in 2015 by Earlybird. The total venture capital investment in the company since 2015 is $6.2 million.

The company says it will partly use the new money to open an office in Dubai by the summer. Founded in 2002, the company has hundreds of customers in more than 45 countries. It is notable for providing the technology that helps to support Lufthansa Direct Connect and Emirates Direct Connect. It is also part of the new wave of booking tech that’s disrupting how airlines sell tickets.

>>BedKin has raised $560,000 in funding to develop a marketplace for home-sharing. Its four full-time employees believe they can compete with Airbnb “by building a better mousetrap for an underserved type of mouse.” They believe that millions of U.S. homes are already shared among friends and family via inefficient methods like text message and email scheduling. Bedkin says it simplifies the process with a free private messenger, plus a shared online calendar plus an online home profile.

>>JetBlue Technology Ventures has invested in Zunum Aero, a Washington-based company that is developing regional hybrid-electric aircraft for the early 2020s. It did not disclose the early-stage funding amount. The venture capital arm of the U.S. airline joins Boeing HorizonX as another backer.

You can check out all our previous startup funding roundups, here.