Is There a Doctor On the Road? Travel Medicine Startup Raises $1.5 Million: Travel Startup Funding 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 jd@skift.com if you have funding news.

Everyone has gotten sick on the road. Business travelers and vacationers both know the hassle of trying to find a doctor in a strange city, and many of us know about ending up in strange little doctor's offices that have risque pictures of celebrity patients on the wall (yes, this really happened) because our hotels had deals with said physicians, and about missing the chance to drive a venture capitalist's Tesla Roadster back when they were exotic (that, too) because that same fever forced us to cancel.

Now, a Miami-based startup called Runway says it can make it all better

The brainchild of 36-year old former pharmaceutical executive Josh Rome, Runway is setting out to be the Roman or Hims of travel medicine, doing for travel diarrhea, motion sickness and malaria what the earlier startups have done in erectile dysfunction and hair restoration. The idea: Let travelers arrange for online consultation about common problems before you go, and get pre-travel delivery of drugs so travelers can be prepared.

The company just raised $1.5 million in pre-seed venture capital, from investors led by Pareto Holdings, a business incubator led by Shutterstock founder Jon Oringer.

The market for travel health is a $12 billion industry yearly, Rome said, now served by