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Mapbox’s funding shows that Google will once again face competition for location-based data, which is good for market dynamics.
Each week we round up travel startups that have recently received or announced funding. The total raised this week was more than $480 million.
>>Tujia.com, China’s largest domestic vacation-rental platform, received $300 million in financing, led by China’s largest travel portal Ctrip and investment firm All-Stars, as we noted earlier this week. The round values Tujia at $1.5 billion.
>>Mapbox, a startup that sells mapping and location-search technology to companies in various sectors, has raised a $164 million investment round, led by Softbank.
The startup provides mapping data to travel companies, with clients including Airbnb, Lonely Planet, and Snapchat. But its most lucrative market appears to be helping businesses attempting to build self-driving vehicles, which need mapping data to work.
Since its founding in 2010, Mapbox has disclosed $227 million in funding. It has 280 workers in offices worldwide. Competitors include Alphabet’s Google and Nokia’s mapping business, Here.
The Washington, D.C.-based company plans to use the funding to pick up the pace of its growth in Southeast Asia, China, and Europe.
>>HomeToGo, a metasearch engine for vacation rentals, said it had raised a Series C funding round but it did not disclose the amount.
It said that now total investment in HomeToGo is “a significant eight-figure number.” HomeToGo had previously disclosed having raised $26.6 million since its founding in 2014.
Insight Venture Partners led the round, and Acton Capital Partners, DN Capital, and Global Founders Capital participated.
The company said it lists 11 million vacation rental properties (a figure that doesn’t include hotels, which it also lists) sourced from all the major aggregators except for Airbnb. It refers more than 20 million users from all over the world to its partners every month, a spokesperson said.
The Berlin-based company has 150 full-time employees. It said it is one of the biggest TV spenders in the travel market.
>>Withlocals, a consumer marketplace for personalized travel experiences, received $4.1 million, or €3.5 million, in a Series A investment. Inkef Capital led the round.
Withlocals said it offers 1,200 tours and activities, which are led by hundreds of individuals in a couple dozen cities. In 2018, Withlocals plans to expand to 40 more cities.
Withlocals curates only fully private tours. This model is not unlike Vayable, which has been around for years but has stayed small.
The Eindhoven, Netherlands-based Withlocals has disclosed $7.4 million in total funding since its founding in 2013.
>>Groupize, maker of a technology platform for booking and managing small meetings, has secured an additional $3.25 million as part of its Series A financing round.
Thayer Ventures led the round. Golden Seeds, Launchpad Ventures, Wayfare Ventures, NTX Venture Fund, and the Ace Fund also participated.
The company pivoted two years ago to focus on delivering meetings solution for corporations which want their travel managers to get small meetings (such as nine or fewer hotel bookings or less, 50 attendees or less) into compliance with company policy, and digitized as part of standard workflows.
Groupize has signed up six Fortune 100 companies and “four of the top travel management companies in the world” to its platform, the company said.
Earlier this year, the company integrated its solution with Concur. Groupize has a close partnership with Travelport.
The company, which launched in 2011, has previously raised $4 million as part of this Series A.
>>CarHopper, a platform for renting luxury and exotic cars on-demand, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding. It is an agreement for future equity, which is intended to replace convertible notes and makes it more flexible for the company to take additional angel funding.
The six-person, Miami-based company did not disclose its lead investor.
As of today, consumers or the hotel concierges they work with can use the marketplace to book cars directly from suppliers in major markets, such as Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, and San Francisco.
Check out our previous startup funding roundups, here.
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: Mapbox, which sells mapping and location-search technology, raised a $164 million investment round, led by SoftBank. One of its business lines is services for self-driving cars. Mapbox