Skift Take
Divvy is an expense management startup that faces formidable competition from incumbent players, such as Concur, Certify, and Expensify. To draw users, it's offering business travel booking discounts and tools. Clever.
Travel Startup Funding This Week
Each week we round up travel startups that have recently received or announced funding. Please email Travel Tech Reporter Justin Dawes at [email protected] if you have funding news.
The total publicized this week was more than $23 million.
>>Divvy, an expense management company, has raised a $10.5 million Series A round.
Pelion Ventures led the financing. The startup has raised more than $20 million to date and has 65 full-time employees.
Divvy, based in Lehi, Utah, enables all employees at the companies that use it to have a virtual company credit card. The startup also replaces the formal filing of monthly expense reports with a digitized system for filing on a rolling basis.
Later this year, the startup will use the funding to launch a team of travel agents who will book travel on behalf of the employees who use the service. In the meantime, employees who use Divvy can access an internet portal where Divvy offers hotel and other travel at discounted, wholesale rates.
>>OwlTing, a maker of blockchain-powered applications for hotel bookings, food safety, and other verticals, has received an undisclosed investment of at least $10 million from SBI Crypto Investment, part of Japan-based SBI Holdings.
The Taipei, Taiwan-based blockchain startup previously raised $5.1 million across seed and Series A rounds.
Late last year, it released OwlNest, a business-to-business platform for hotel operators. The hotel management service uses a distributed ledger system to prevent double-transactions. That lets hotel operators to avoid overbooking with less manual labor than today’s processes.
>>AtYourGate, a mobile e-commerce and airport gate delivery service, has raised $2 million in seed funding.
Triton Funds led the round. AtYourGate has raised $2.25 million to date.
The company has put its service into production at San Diego International Airport, where it has eight employees along with the five full-timers at its headquarters in San Diego.
In recent months, the two-year-old startup, and GOLO, a mobile ordering platform that is part of the Paysafe Group, launched “AtYourGate powered by GOLO” — a mobile app for Apple and Android devices that allows airport goers to use their mobile phones to order airport products and have them delivered directly to them, said AtYourGate founder and CEO P.J. Mastracchio.
The company will use the latest funding to expand to other airports both domestically and internationally, it said. It was founded by alumni of the University of California, San Diego and has received assistance from the San Diego International Airport Innovation Lab. It was also part of the 12-week accelerator program run by Plug and Play’s Global Travel & Hospitality Platform of Innovation.
>>Localeur, a platform where locals can share with visitors their favorite places to eat, drink, and have fun, has raised an additional $900,000, according to a financial filing. That brings its seed round to a total of $5.1 million — its total raised, to date.
About 75 angel investors have bet on the Austin, Texas-based company, which was founded in 2013 by CEO Joah Spearman, after he served a stint as director of operations and strategic initiatives at social commerce company Bazaarvoice before its IPO.
Localeur offers user-generated advice to nearly a couple-dozen major cities worldwide. It provides some of its content to JetBlue Airways and has affiliate marketing deals with companies like Tablet Hotels.
Skift Cheat Sheet:
We define a startup as a company formed to test and build a repeatable and scalable business model. Few companies meet that definition. The rare ones that do often attract venture capital — where money is provided today to fund growth in exchange for a promise of large returns in the future.
Funding tends to come in waves. Seed capital is money used to start a business, often led by angel investors and friends or family.
Series A financing is typically drawn from venture capitalists. The round aims to help a startup’s founders make sure that their product is something that customers truly want to buy. Investors often must wait between 7 and ten years to see a payoff.
Series B financing is mainly about venture capitalist firms helping a company grow faster, or scale up. These fundraising rounds can help with recruiting skilled workers and developing cost-effective marketing.
Series C financing is ordinarily about helping a company expand, such as through acquisitions. Hedge funds, investment banks, and private equity firms often participate along with venture capital firms.
Series D, E, and beyond These mainly mature businesses and the funding round may help a company prepare to go public or be acquired. A variety of types of private investors might participate.
Check out our previous startup funding roundups, here.
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Tags: funding, startups, vcroundup
Photo credit: Some fans of Divvy pose for a photo. The expense management system has received $10 million in Series A funding. Divvy