Startups, Launches, Venture Capital Fundings in Travel Sector by Skift

Rizort Raises $2.9 Million for VR-Infused Travel Advice: Travel Startup Funding This Week

Sean O'Neill, Skift

Can virtual reality content play a role in helping to persuade travelers to book luxury destinations in Southeast Asia? That's the bet made by Rizort, an online travel agency startup that received funding this week.

2 days ago

Divvy Raises $10.5 Million to Tame Expense Reports: Travel Startup Funding This Week

Sean O'Neill, Skift

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.

1 week ago

Vacation Rental Search Site Tripping Lays Off 15 Employees and Restructures

Dennis Schaal, Skift

Metasearch is hard, and comparison-shopping for vacation rentals and apartment shares is even harder. Tripping and others are having a hard time building their brands in the face of competition from larger players with more ample resources.

3 weeks ago

Life House Raises $40 Million to Modernize Hotels: Travel Startup Funding This Week

Sean O'Neill, Skift

Life House is a hospitality company that strives to be an experience platform offering more than mere beds to sleep in, echoing some of the Megatrends Skift identified for 2018. But it's unclear why investors in the company think it will scale as rapidly as venture capitalists typically expect.

4 weeks ago

BlaBlaCar Buys Less to Plug a Carpooling Tech Gap

Sean O'Neill, Skift

It’s too early to know if short-distance, urban carpooling from BlaBlaCar can effectively compete with taxis and car-hailing apps like Cabify, Lyft, and Uber. But as a defensive experiment, the move makes sense.

4 weeks ago

Guesty Raises $19 Million for Vacation Rental Sales: Travel Startup Funding This Week

Sean O'Neill, Skift

Travel startups raised more than $128 million this week. Tel Aviv-based Guesty, which is like a Salesforce for vacation rental property managers, was one of the fortunate companies.

4 weeks ago

Announcing Skift’s Air Pitch Startup Competition

Accenture Amadeus Alliance + Skift

We teamed up with the Accenture Amadeus Alliance to give travel industry startups a platform to pitch their innovative solutions at our premier startup competition.

1 month ago

Listicle Platform Culture Trip Raises $80 Million to Build Online Travel Agency

Sean O'Neill, Skift

Who knew that adding affiliate booking links to the hotels mentioned in articles and videos could earn record levels of investment?

1 month ago

Why Everybody Now Wants a Piece of the Tours and Activities Sector

Seth Borko, Skift Research

Large travel corporations can't seem to get enough of the tours and activities space. It's one to watch as the year unfolds. Deals can be a great way to get a foot in the door, but don't forget to make sure there is a strategic fit — and, of course, that the price is right.

1 month ago

JetBlue’s Venture Arm Invests in a Startup That Predicts Flight Delays

Sean O'Neill, Skift

If venture-backed startup Lumo has its way, more travelers will avoid flight cancellations thanks to breakthroughs in artificial intelligence. No wonder that JetBlue, EasyJet, and other companies are interested.

1 month ago

TravelPerk Raises $21 Million for Business Travel Bookings: Travel Startup Funding This Week

Sean O'Neill, Skift

TravelPerk's and TravelTriangle's fundings are yet a further sign that Skift called it right in our 2018 megatrend predictions. We said companies are investing heavily in treating business travelers as respectable consumers rather than as animals that need prodding like goats.

1 month ago

Nor1 Buys Stay Delightful as More Hotels Upsell Guests on Text Chat

Sean O'Neill, Skift

It's old news that many hotels are enabling guests to text requests to the front desk. But it's still early days for them to piece together the tech systems in a way that will let them successfully upsell guests on additional services via chat.

2 months ago