Articles tagged “startups”

Holidu has been winning the pandemic. It has become profitable thanks to a surge of interest in vacation rentals and holiday homes.

Here's a bright ray of positivity in a gloomy time. Howzat is raising a big fund, and it plans to make roughly half of its investments in travel and transportation startups.

Innovations that cities are incubating today will serve the travel industry tomorrow, as Skift noted as a megatrend earlier this year. The story of Ubicquia, a smart city startup, makes the point. Potential applications of its tech include resort areas and theme parks.

Skift cited the subscription model as one of the megatrends to watch in travel this year. So we were intrigued to see that Inspirato and BeRightBack, two pure-play efforts at being the "Netflix of travel," have withstood the pandemic assault rather well.

We checked in with a hotel startup, two providers of software to hotels, a business travel startup, and a software maker for the tours-and-activities sector to see how last-minute funding helped them survive the industry's nuclear winter.

This week, we cover funding news from BookingKit (which makes software for tours-and-activities operators), Rotamundos (a budget hotel brand in Mexico), Izy (which provides contactless tech to hotels), Hotelbreak (which lets hotel sell services to non-guests), and Dorma (which rents vacation apartments to Italians).

Once the pandemic is tamed, the travel sector will have to respond to the climate emergency. Startups with expertise in responsible travel need to prepare now for when their moment arrives next year.

Expect other travel tech players to pick up promising startups at a discount during the pandemic.

Entrepreneur and Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel once famously said: "We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters." Fast forward to 2020: SkyDrive hopes to give us flying cars in a few years, bringing remote areas closer. It’s one of a few startups dreaming big in this week’s roundup.

The future's coming right at you. Investors have backed Reliable Robotics, which builds autonomous aircraft, and Movie Hotel, which brings screening rooms and exclusive studio content to properties.