PanTrek is a startup that intends to bring inter-city bus booking in Latin American into the digital era.
The company signs direct partnerships with bus operators. It doesn't web-scrape or re-sell tickets. All of its APIs are all in real-time, aiming to guarantee a traveler a confirmed seat on a bus.
In early May, the company opened its public beta in Colombia. It will be launching in Peru within the next 2-3 months, before expanding to the rest of Latin America.
It has a partnership with Amadeus in which the tech company is providing it with technical expertise for building out its global distribution system capabilities.
What problem does your business solve?
PanTrek is a free search engine for booking inter-city bus tickets in Latin America (LATAM), a $15 billion market.
We are aggregating a highly fragmented industry that sells more than 1 billion tickets annually, which is actually six times bigger than the airline market in Latin America (based on quantity of tickets sold).
The company was created after PanTrek’s founder, David Feldsott, was planning a backpacking trip through Latin America but couldn’t find any information about how best to navigate by bus. Frustrated with the ordeal, he decided to build a solution.
Multiple problems exist that have depressed the potential in the inter-city bus market in Latin America:
- No bus specifics online: e.g. no available routes, schedules, or prices
- No qualitative research: no photos, amenities, bus company profiles, user reviews or ratings
- Can’t easily compare bus companies across dimensions
- Few places to actually purchase bus tickets online
- No international payment options for foreigners
- Impossible to combine routes or bus companies into 1 transaction
PanTrek is tackling all of these problems with our OTA & GDS solution.
These direct partnerships also help us deliver better customer service than other providers since we work closely with the bus companies on resolving any problems that might occur.
With a more convenient, informative, and comprehensive product, we know more people will finally have the confidence to travel by bus.
Lastly, we invented something called “Social Seating” which is our patent-pending software that helps customize the on-board experience for travelers. We don’t know any company in the inter-city bus market that helps improve someone’s actual journey.
By providing additional (yet anonymous) information about other travelers on the bus, you can better decide where you want to sit. For example, our software lets you know where other travelers are sitting that want to strike up a conversation and what languages they speak.
You can also know which people would rather sleep or do work and sit besides them if you don’t want to be bothered.
We also track ticket types so you can avoid sitting next to those crying babies and children. All info is anonymous though to protect identities and for security.
Names of founders, their management roles, and number of full-time paid staff?
PanTrek is a 7-person team. We are a US company, but primarily work out of our office in Medellin, Colombia.
David Feldsott (Founder & CEO)
Juan Carlos Rodriguez (Co-founder & CTO)
Alejandro Toro (Co-founder & Head of Business Development)
Edwin Jerez (Head of UX / UI Design)
Gina Isaacs (Head of Marketing)
We also have 2 other software engineers on the team, too.
Funding arrangements?
We received $25K as a portfolio company of the Travel Startups Incubator. Besides this small investment, we have bootstrapped out of the founder’s savings.
We are currently raising a seed round to expand geographically and continue to build out the product.
Revenue model?
We operate on a commission model, receiving a percentage of sales on the back-end from the bus companies. We do not charge any fees to the traveler.
Therefore, purchasing bus tickets through us would cost the traveler the same amount of money as if he/she bought the tickets directly from the bus company.
Why do you think the pain point you’re solving is painful enough that customers are willing to pay for your solution?
The platform is free for travelers to use. Our paying customers are the bus companies.
In the bus industry, on average, the seat utilization rate ranges from 60-80% (depending on seasonality).
So the bus companies are willing to pay a commission to fill their unused inventory before it spoils. Every unsold seat is lost incremental revenue.
External validation?
We recently received a runner-up prize from the judges at Travel Tech Con. We also won 1st place at the NYC Latino Tech Pitch Event.
We have come to terms with 12 inter-city bus companies in Colombia and Peru and are in negotiations with another 28. After releasing our beta, many of the bus companies that had given us the “cold shoulder” wanted to partner up -- once they saw the website’s sleek design.
PanTrek is a portfolio company of Travel Startups Incubator and we have an advisory board full of top travel and technology industry veterans:
• Bill Beckler (Founder, AllTheRooms)
• John Thomas (“fairy godmother of the airline industry”)
• Diego Molano (former Minister of Technology for Colombia)
• Bryan Lip (Former Global Head of Search for Expedia’s Affiliate Network)
• Senior Executive at Greyhound Lines (undisclosed)
Here's a one-minute video pitch from the founder:
Tnooz view:
Tnooz is keen on the inter-city bus market, a sector ripe for innovation. BusBud, CheckMyBus, ClickBus, Distribusion, Voyenbus (also in Latin America) and Wanderu have all made strides in bringing this sector into the digital era in various geographical markets worldwide.
In conversations, PanTrek's CEO displayed a level of strategic thinking about his sector that was exceptional among startup founders in any sector I've spoken with.
There are practicalities to executing a combination of B2C and B2B plans that could unseat many a CEO. A mixed B2C and B2b strategy can be fusion, or it can be confusion. But with luck, his team will get this booking engine working perfectly, put the pedal to the metal, and drive their bus like they stole it.
Related:
Distribusion raises Euro 6 million to expand bus ticket platform
Wanderu adds Amtrak to its intercity bus and train metasearch, has raised $8 million, to date
Busbud seizes B2B opportunity, hires Expedia exec -- has raised $9 million, to date
ClickBus keeps rolling with $10 million in funding
CheckMyBus steers into the future of global bus travel