Startups

This week travel startups GuestReady Group, Duffel, MagicStay, and Fairjungle announced more than $32 million in funding.

We’ve pinpointed 25 of the most promising venture-backed travel companies. Check out our list to find a useful partner for your business.

TUI Fly says it's the first airline to work with tech vendors to automate and standardize the process of flight disruption claims. Larger carriers, take note: You also need to reduce your enormous backlogs of consumer claims, whether you build tech in-house or find a vendor.

Yanolja got its start as a chain of so-called love motels. But it has since become a reputable online travel agency in Korea and a provider of a widely used property management system. No wonder Booking Holdings has made a strategic investment in the company.

CellPoint Mobile, which helps airlines and other travel companies run their mobile apps more effectively, has received $14 million in investment. The move underscores the ongoing venture capital interest in business-to-business services in travel.

Props to Volantio, which won the Air Pitch startup competition at Skift Global Forum last year, for now getting investment and sales support from Amadeus.

A top-tier private equity firm like General Atlantic should provide a strong tailwind for Kiwi as it branches out from selling plane tickets into other types of travel. But it's a bit surprising that Ctrip.com or another travel conglomerate didn't bite instead.

Startups announcing funding this week include Mindsay, a travel chatbot maker, Interprefy, a service for providing remote interpreters for events, Airfree, a service that sells duty-free products online during flights, and Airblack, a social-travel commerce startup.

The funding of French startup Mindsay may be small news. But interviews with its customers Iberia and CWT suggest that a second wave of chatbot technology has stopped frustrating travelers with as many misunderstandings as the earlier tech did. That's a big deal for the sector.

This week travel startups announced more than $309 million in funding, as Mafengwo, Prowler.io, Instawork, Revenue Analytics, Dawex, and Outpost received investments.