This is a regular roundup of some of the latest mobile application startup launches in travel covering everything from trip inspiration and planning to virtual assistants.
Bitemojo
What does it do?
The app offers culinary tours of neighbourhoods. The Israel-based startup offers five tours of Berlin currently with options for walking but biking and public transport to come. The tours take users through the 'food scene' of various neighbourhoods taking in 'bitestops' along the way. The stops are picked by the bitemojo team which also works with restaurateurs to decide which snacks and drinks to offer along the tour. Expansion to other cities is in the pipeline.
Is there a problem you're trying to solve?
Michael Weiss, bitemojo co-founder says:
"From a user perspective, bitemojo helps people become what we call 'successful tourists' - travelers who experience the most out of the time spent on that destination. A successful tourist is a person who had a fun, interesting, meaningful and personal activity that involved food as one of the main focal points for that place. A successful tourist is a person that didn't spent considerable valuable time of his vacation searching for things to do, and didn't fall into the many tourists traps since he used a source that picked for him the best bites and places at that destination.
At a more macro level, the tourism market is quite full with solutions of how to get to a destination, and where to stay while you are there, but there is a huge lack of a brands that provide you with a great thing to do globally, so if today you are in Berlin and tomorrow in Tokyo, you can take it and know for sure you are looking for a high-end experience, no matter where you do."
Who's behind it?
Husband and wife team Yael Weiss-Gadish and Michael Weiss are co-founders of the startup. The pair have been running food tours in Israel’s open market (the “shuk”) for years. Their aim is to bring people together by sharing the eating experience, and helping them to get to know a city through the food.
What else?
Bitemojo is a finalist of Jerusalem's Mass Challenge incubator.
Companyon
What is it?
Companyon was launched earlier this summer to help travellers connect and network thus making their time more productive. App features include the ability to browse lists to see who is travelling on the same routes as well as in-app chat to connect with people. It also enables travellers to check-in for flights.
Is there a problem you are trying to solve?
Parth Shrivastava, Companyon co-founder says:
"The problem which we are aiming at is to break the ice between co-travelers prior to the journey so as to make use of the immense hidden networking opportunities. A use case could be if an investor is travelling in the same flight as of mine, I would like to connect with him as I am an entrepreneur and Companyon can facilitate that."
Who's behind it?
Parth Shrivastava, co-founder, is an IIT Hyderabad graduate. He has also worked in a startup as an intern and carried out UI/UX design projects.
Mayur Misra, co-founder, studied at Aerospace Engineering SRM University, Chennai. He also worked for more than two years in RBS as a corporate banker before joining a local handyman services startup.
Goutham Ravichandran, co-founder is also an IIT Hyderabad graduate.
What else?
The company is bootstrapped but hopes to raise angel investment by the end of October. It is also considering a number of incubators and accelerators.
Prava
What does it do?
Prava comes from a Sanskrit word 'Pravasa' which means journey. The startup came together last year in Bengaluru, India and wants to improve the way travellers connect by giving them the platform to plan and share trips. Having launched the iphone version this summer, the team now plans to add experiences.
Is there a problem you're trying to solve?
Chief executive and co-founder Venky says:
"Sharing of experiences between a group of friends while organizing and executing a trip is broken. Members have to depend on various disparate channels and apps for discovering trip ideas, discussing them, finalizing, developing the itinerary, splitting the trip costs and sharing the memories of the trip - not just between themselves but also the world.
"From say, discovering a trip idea on TripAdvisor, to say, sharing that selfie from the trip on Instagram, it's all about juggling and switching apps - meaning a lot of time and effort.
"Prava app provides one neat place for friends to discover trip ideas, discuss them, develop the itinerary, split costs and share photos and blogs - keeping all these to themselves within the group. After the trip, they also have the option of publishing the photos and blogs as one group to the entire Prava community - which becomes the trip idea for another traveller."
Who's behind it?
The nine-strong team is led by founder Baragur Venkatesha, who has a background in product management, UI/UX and marketing.
What else?
The company is currently bootstrapped. There are plans to to raise funding early next year but the startup wants to have some numbers in place first in terms of user acquisition and app usage.
NB: Mobile app image via Iqoncept for BigStockPhoto.