A Big Bet on ‘Mystery Vacations’: Travel Startup Funding This Week
Photo Caption: Journee is betting adventurous consumers will book "mystery trips" without knowing where the company will send them. This one is in Spain. Source: Journee
Skift Take
A London startup is betting that travelers will take mystery vacations, learning their destinations at the airport. A Czech travel agency raises $100 million for expansion. And other venture capital and funding news this week.
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.Megha Chaturvedi has been married nine years: She booked their vacations, and her husband usually didn't even know where they were going. Now she's turned that idea into a company.
Chaturvedi and two partners just raised 1.75 million British pounds ($2.1 million US) of seed capital to turn London tour operator Journee into a bet that other people are like her husband: Surprise them thoughtfully, and they'll have a good time.
It works a bit like Netflix: Tell Journee's algorithm what you're looking for - scenery, history or local food - and it plans a trip that fits the customer's budget. The company picks lodging, flights, activities, even restaurants for four days or more. (All trips leave from London). Then Journee makes a proposal telling the customer about where they're going, without naming the city. The customer then decides whether to buy it or not.
"We've never sent someone to
