Almost a year to the day since it wooed an ex-Expedia CEO to invest, group tour and activity booking service TourRadar has raised another $500,000.
New angel investors in the Austria-based company (TLabs here) include compatriot AC & Friends and existing backer SpeedInvest.
The round announced in June 2013 was undisclosed at the time, but the latest injection is said to have put the total amount raised so far to "over $1 million".
CEO Travis Pittman says the new round puts the company valuation at around $4.5 million.
The company says it will invest the money in growing the brand and converting more tour operators in the market to the onlione agency booking model.
It claims to now have more than $150,000 in gross revenues a month.
Some of the company's previous investors - Erik Blachford and Jörg Trouvain (former CEO of HolidayCheck, Christoph Prinz (ex-f:wz aviation system provider which sold to Sabre), Markus Wagner of Vienna incubator i5invest - have returned, though their names are undisclosed so far.
SpeedInvest, another Austria-based investment fund, first saw Pittman showcase the TourRadar service on a local Dragons' Den-style entreprenur TV show, called "2 Minuten, 2 Millionen" ("2 Minutes, 2 Million").
Pittman says:
"The tour travel space is said to be the last untapped area of online travel, worked on by the likes of Viator, Expedia and Chinese Tuniuwho recently filed for an IPO on Nasdaq.
"That doesn’t come as a surprise if you add up the numbers: a huge supply, often untransparent and confusing for the customer, and a sizeable market, make for a great investment, not to mention the industry giants like TripAdvisor or Priceline that have been acquiring startups frequently to broaden their portfolio."