NewTravelco, the travel startup recently unveiled by a quartet of Expedia alums, has raised $9.8 million in equity financing from 25 investors, according to the company's maiden SEC filing.
The founding team of NewTravelco -- obviously the company's working title -- is Expedia founder and ex-chief executive Rich Barton and former colleagues Simon Breakwell, Greg Slyngstad and Sunil Shah.
Barton, Breakwell, Slyngstad and Shah all are investors in the firm, the company says.
The SEC filing about the financing doesn't provide additional specifics about the more than two dozen investors, but there are strong hints as the board directors of the Seattle-based company includes Joel Cutler of General Catalyst Partners and Brad Silverberg of Ignition Partners.
Cambridge, Mass.-based General Catalyst Partners is an investor in Kayak and ITA Software.
The SEC filing lists Slingstad, Barton, Silverberg and Cutler as board directors.
Slyngstad, who is an investor in Kayak and on its board, is listed in the SEC filing as NewTravelco's president, and Shah, another Expedia veteran, is cited as an executive officer.
Stuart MacDonald, employee #1 of Expedia Canada and CEO of TripHarbor, counts several of the principals in TravelNewco as his friends and says: "The founders are rock stars in the online travel space and anyone who is interested in where this category is going should be paying attention."
But, for all of the hype about this new travel startup, one insider says there may be less "pixie dust" at play in the enterprise than some people may imagine.
Translation: The "boys" are back, assembling an all-star cast and securing funding, but they may not have formed any category-killing ideas yet.
We'll see what they come up with.