Startups

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.

We like to say there's always a way to create your own white space. HotelRunner is a startup looking at the crowded hospitality sector in fresh ways. Think the budget model of EasyJet or AirAsia, but for a hotel tech stack.

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.

Are there really enough people who want to remote-control a robot and visit places virtually? We're skeptical. But the founder of the startup Propelmee is surprisingly persuasive at the potential uses for such robots.

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.

Freebird has gone kaput but the concept of predictive intelligence smoothing out the travel experience will only gain strength during the rebound from the pandemic. Capitol One sees opportunity.

The merger of Hotelogix, a property management system, with AxisRooms, a provider of revenue management and distribution services, and RepUp, an online reputation management tool, is probably one of many mergers likely in hotel tech in response to the crisis.