18/07/2019 – Travelstop has raised US$3M in a pre-Series A round led by Accel, the American venture capital firm that has funded famed technology companies such as Facebook and Spotify. The round was also joined by Strive (formerly GREE Ventures), and see the return of existing investor SeedPlus.
SeedPlus previously led the $1.2M seed funding in August 2018, which sees the involvement of investors such as Dan Lynn and Vikram Malhi, founders of Zuzu Hospitality Solutions, David Ko from Rally Health, and Jarrod Howe the regional operations director of Hyper Island Singapore.
Following the successful pre-Series A funding, Prashanth Prakash, a key member of Accel’s India team will be joining Travelstop’s board of directors.
Prakash said, “Travelstop is building a locally relevant solution for the millennial generation of business travelers. In less than a year, they’ve built a solid, category-defining business and launched a world-class product that has been adopted by a growing number of companies and their employees.”
Headquartered in Singapore, the startup was founded in 2018 by ex-Yahoo executives Prashant Kirtane, Vijay Aggarwal, and Altaf Dhamani. Aiming to simplify the corporate travel scene in Asia, Travelstop provides an AI-powered all in one platform that combines flight and hotel booking, travel insurance, and expense reporting. A 24/7 support desk is also in the pipeline.
“We want to offer a much better experience for our business travelers. It starts with offering proactive support — building tools that constantly monitor schedule changes or flight disruptions, and reaching out to the travelers proactively to reschedule and plan alternatives,” said Kirtane.
He added, “We also want to make sure that the travelers can reach out to us at any time with ease, with chat support, and that the median time it takes for our team to respond is less than two minutes.”
On a different note, Travelstop announced a partnership with Indonesia-based unicorn Traveloka.
The Indonesian company will make available its flights and hotel inventory on Travelstop’s platform. The partnership is a key strategic move to provide the most comprehensive travel inventory to corporate travelers, reducing cost while boosting productivity, explains Kirtane.
Fresh funds from the latest funding round will be channeled into improving the platform’s technology and accelerating adoption rate across Asia.
