Mogul Recruiter’s $20 Million Funding Draws Notice to a New Wave of Data-Based Travel Startups
Photo Credit: A suite at the Four Seasons hotel in Los Angeles. Five of the company's senior employees have been identified as stars by Mogul Recruiter's software. Mogul, a hospitality tech startup in Los Angeles, represents a wave of data-savvy startups. Four Seasons
Skift Take
Airbnb represents a wave of travel startups focused on digitizing supply for e-commerce. But next-wave travel startups, including names like freshly funded Mogul Recruiter and Tourlane, create new products and services by using big data and artificial intelligence.
Mogul Recruiter, a travel tech startup in Los Angeles, said last week it has raised $20 million, led by its largest seed investor, Silicon Valley-based L37, to help partnerships despite the coronavirus pandemic. Mogul analyzes records to identify star performers in the hospitality sector and helps hoteliers hire these stars and customers book stay at hotels with these workers.
The announcement may draw little attention amid the distractions of a week with Airbnb's filing to go public. But the sector should take notice. While the sums involved are small and the odds against startups are high, Mogul's real significance is a tiny-but-eye-catching sign of a feverish race underway by startups to use big data and next-generation analytics in travel.
The Airbnb initial public offering might represent the last big hurrah of a two-decade rise of travel companies that moved offline travel purchases online. The "big bang" of these online travel companies began with the birth of Expedia and
