Redeam's digital ticketing technology addresses a genuine need in the tours and activities market, and it just got a boost with $7.7 million raised in Series A funding.
The company - which took home a trio of awards at The Phocuswright Conference in November for its solution that allows attractions providers to accept paper and mobile vouchers from resellers - will use the capital to expand its operations.
The round was led by Vertical Venture Partners, with
participation from Thayer Ventures, JetBlue Technology Ventures, Tallwave
Capital and Peninsula Ventures.
Additional investors include Barney Harford, COO of Uber and
former CEO of Orbitz; John Love, former CTO at Concur; Russ Sach, member of the
founding team at Expedia; Thomas See, chief revenue officer at Live Nation
Entertainment; and Rob Torres, managing director at Google Travel.
Co-founder and CEO Kevin McLaughlin says the funding will be
used to expand Redeam’s staff, which currently has just 15 people, to keep up
with demand.
“We’re integrating with resellers, we are integrating with
ticketing platforms and reservation platforms, so that’s a bunch of software
engineers to make that happen and to build out core features on our product,”
McLaughlin says.
“And then also our sales and marketing efforts. We’ve got a
little over 200 customers so far that we’ve gotten pretty much by word of mouth
and mostly inbound, and we want to ramp up our sales and support teams to be
able to reach more people.”
Solving a big problem
Unlike travel sectors such as airlines and hotels that have
transitioned to digital reservations and ticketing, many suppliers of tours and
attractions still require customers to print vouchers.
Redeam provides technology for these businesses, as well as
integration with ticketing companies and resellers, so customers can
manage the reservation and redemption process from their mobile device. Redeam
collects a fee from the supplier on each voucher processed.
Clients include CitySightseeing/Gray Line New York, National
Geographic Encounter: Ocean Odyssey and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The company says its digital solutions enable suppliers to eliminate the
expensive and time-consuming process of manually validating vouchers and
invoicing resellers.
“Not only are we
solving a very expensive problem for suppliers, we’re boosting resellers’
ability to sell mobile tickets, creating happier customers and reducing paper
use for everyone,” McLaughlin says.
Brad Corona, partner at Vertical Venture Partners, and Chris
Hemmeter, managing director of Thayer Ventures, will join Redeam’s board of
directors.
“The tours and activities sector is long overdue for
innovation and disruption,” Hemmeter says.
“We’re happy to participate in this round for Redeam, whose
technology solution is positioned to catapult this sector into the mobile age
and bring significant benefits to companies throughout the space. This is the
first announced investment for Thayer Ventures III, our third fund, and we look
forward to working closely with the Redeam founders and team in the months
ahead.”
In the next year, McLaughlin says the company will work to become
integrated with all the major reseller platforms and many ticketing and
reservation systems and to grow their supplier base to major markets in the
United States and some in Europe.
Redeam is based in Boulder, CO, and also has offices in
San Francisco and Philadelphia.
See a video of Redeam's award-winning pitch below.
Redeam Phocuswright Conference 2017