KelBillet, the French multimodal search engine, has launched a new brand for other European markets: Gopili.
The new multi-modal search engine for domestic and short-haul trips in Europe is a more than 2 million euro project that is financed with internal funds and banks, including BPI and CIC.
Gopili searches plane, rail, inter-city bus, and car-sharing sites for point-to-point inventory. It has started with a UK portal but plans to expand across the continent.
It does a similar service to what parent company KelBillet (profitable since 2009) has already been doing in France, where it claims to drive 2 million unique visitors per month, with a conversion rate for rail carriers of "up to 20%".
In the beta release, Gopili is working with eBookers for the airfare data, Loco2 for rail metasearch data, and BlaBlaCar for ride-sharing data. Integration with other carriers and online travel agencies (OTAs) is planned.
How can Gopili compete against better funded startups offering similar services like GoEuro, metasearch giant Skyscanner, and Rome2Rio? Answers KelBillet CEO Yann Raoul:
"Our strategic positioning is different.
Some other websites are well funded, but they don't act as a metasearch: for example GoEuro works in Spain as an OTA and sell tickets under its own brand.
On Gopili, we will re-direct people to well-known and secured merchant websites. This difference may seem to be light, but is really important for marketing.
Skyscanner is metasearch but it is mono-modal (plane) and focused on trips all over the world--especially European and intercontinental trips. Its client target is business and holidays travellers.
In contrast, Gopili is multimodal and is focused on domestic trips and short-haul trips. Our client target is VFR - Visit Friends and Relatives.
Rome2Rio is a great intermodal tool to discover what are the different options. We don't consider them as a direct competitor: their goal is to present different available combinations of means of transportation on a point-to-point basis.
But Rome2Rio is not focused on the price--and it doesn't accurately give it. We call this intermodal search, which is great when it is the first time you go somewhere and you have no idea how you can reach your destination."
Gopili is located in the Rennes area of France. It is hiring country managers to develop the audience in Britain, Belgium, Germany, and Spain, as well as a mobile app developer and other technical positions.
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