Acai Travel, a generative artificial intelligence (AI) platform, has attracted a minority investment from Amadeus. The terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.
The investment in the New York-based startup, a PhocusWire Hot 25 Travel Startup for 2024, will be made through Amadeus’ strategic funding program, Amadeus Ventures.
Founded in 2023, Acai offers a suite of large language model-based travel operation optimization products for the agency community. The latest investment from Amadeus will be used to reduce operational costs and enhance the traveler experience "across the travel ecosystem," said Riccardo Vittoria, co-founder and CEO of Acai Travel.
“We are already cutting average handling time by 50% for our travel management company (TMC) and online travel agency (OTA) clients, and we will begin working with airlines soon,” said Riccardo Vittoria, Acai Travel co-founder and CEO.
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Vittoria also outlined Acai’s “twofold” vision, which includes “creating an AI-first infrastructure for the travel industry” and “empowering a new generation of ‘full-stack human’ agents,” i.e. professionals that can manage different aspects of operations in tandem with AI agents.
“At Amadeus, we are proud to support the industry and invest in early-stage startups, ensuring we remain at the cutting-edge of our industry,” said Suzanna Chiu, head of Amadeus Ventures.
“The investment announced today with Acai Travel is a great example of this ambition in action, further equipping Amadeus to exploit the significant opportunities presented by generative AI.”
Acai supports Amadeus' mission to harness the power of generative AI by helping OTAs and TMCs reduce handling times, empower a non-global distribution system-trained workforce and cut costs thanks to end-to-end automation, Amadeus said in a release.
In 2024, Acai raised $4 million in seed funding led by Nauta Capital, with participation from DraperB1 and One Travel.
Kiwi.com, Lastminute.com and Globespan Travel Management are among Acai’s current customers, and in November last year, the startup signed Hopper as a partner.
During an interview in the PhocusWire studio at The Phocuswright Conference 2024, Jo Lai, vice president of customer experience at Hopper, and Acai's Vittoria discussed the partnership and the development of AI agents.
Watch the full discussion with PhocusWire executive editor Linda Fox below:
The Phocuswright Conference 2024 Executive Interview: Acai-Hopper partnership