Swiss Travel Startup Chain4Travel Raises $4.5 Million for Blockchain
Skift Take
Chain4Travel raised money to promote blockchain-based travel sales, but the track record of success is short and the technology's comparative advantage over what travel agencies use now remains to be proven.
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 jd@skift.com if you have funding news.Swiss startup Chain4Travel argues that hotels need to be on the blockchain bandwagon, and just raised its first round of venture capital to help prove it.
Based in Baar, about 35 miles from Zurich, the company raised about $4.5 million (4.3 million Swiss francs) to develop blockchain technology to process travel purchases, from hotel rooms to microtransactions like a cup of coffee on an airline flight. Supporting data like maps, Covid policy updates, and regional tourism information will be available in the form of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, a piece of digital data, stored on a blockchain-based network, that can be bought and sold.
Despite the hype, blockchain has had trouble gaining a foothold in the travel industry, Skif
