Ten travel startups are preparing their pitches for the chance to win up to $500,000 in funding as part of the first-ever dedicated travel track at the Seedstars Summit, in partnership with lastminute.com group.
NB:This is a viewpoint from Alisée de Tonnac, CEO and co-founder of Seedstars World.
The ten companies have been selected from the fifty or so Seedstars World events which have taken place around the world over the past year.
Lastminute.com group started working with Seedstars World over a year ago and the dedicated travel track is the first time the event has focused on a specific vertical.
The winner will be chosen by senior lastminute.com executives and invited investors at the event in Lausanne, Switzerland, which takes place on March 3.
The ten travel startups can be broken down as follows:
Mobility solutions for travel and transportation:
Tickey Mobile Solutions (Sofia, Bulgaria) is a solution for public transport, using proximity sensors and mobile payments.
Maramoja (Nairobi, Kenya) is a socially powered on-demand transport app, built on personal trust and relationships.
MyQ (Lagos, Nigeria) is mobile application that provides queue management, passenger loading and ticketing services to the transportation industry.
New technology products for the travel market:
Airshop (Abidjan, Ivory Coast) is a reservation application that allows to pre-order goods in duty-free shops and pick them up when travelling.
ezCloud (Hanoi, Vietnam) is a hotel management solution platform with booking and channel management modules.
Jethunter (Moscow, Russia) is the new Uber of luxurious flight and private jet, offering an easy and price conscious way to book and fly a jet.
PeopleFlyPlanet (Moscow, Russia) is an online smart insurance of passengers against flight delays (cancellations) with payment of claims within a few hours.
A new take on the traditional travel industry
Nomad Republic (Mexico City, Mexico) is a tourism platform that enhances volunteer, culture and adventure tourism providers presence in the international market.
Seeusoon (Santiago, Chile) is a getaway search engine that builds combos of flight and Airbnb.
Tripmydream ( Kiev, Ukraine) is an online destination meta search that finds, analyzes and dynamically packages flight and hotel offers.
Fabio Cannavale, Group CEO of lastminute.com group explains:
“There are so many talented people spread around the world, but the opportunity to realise their talent is not evenly distributed. That is why we want to reach these entrepreneurs and enable them to act upon their ideas. Travel startups have become the drivers for industry-wide innovation and partnering up with Seedstars is a way for us to better understand key markets and get linked to these changemakers.”
NB: This is a viewpoint by Alisée de Tonnac, CEO and Co-founder of Seedstars World. It appears here as part of Tnooz's sponsored content initiative.