It’s been five years since PhocusWire named its Hot 25 Travel Startups for 2021.
As we gear up to announce our class of 2026 startups, in the coming weeks we are checking in with the past classes of Hot 25 Travel Startups from 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.
It's worth remembering that many of these were companies founded around the time of the pandemic. Some, such as Space Perspective, Smooss and Volara, have been acquired, while others, such as Buser, have attracted significant investment rounds.
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Many of the class of 2021 have grown and undergone changes, with Zamna launching two new global markets, Tripkicks experiencing 50%+ revenue growth and Troop Travel releasing Troop Planner.
Some responses have been edited for brevity.
Zamna
Zamna delivers a next-generation passenger travel document approval, operating invisibly inside the airline and without the need for apps.
CEO Irra Ariella Khi:
2025 has been a breakthrough year for Zamna. Our digital identity infrastructure now powers identity verification for over 25 million passengers annually, across major airline groups and government agencies. We launched into two new global markets and doubled the number of active airline deployments.
One example: With Iberojet, Zamna helped achieve a 100% reduction in manual document checks and a 72% drop in airport processing time for passengers who verified pre-departure. It’s a clear proof point of how seamless, upstream identity validation drives real operational ROI.
- The biggest challenge I’m dealing with currently:
Scaling at speed in a highly regulated, risk-averse industry. We're modernizing legacy airline infrastructure while navigating fragmented identity frameworks and security standards across markets.
- My view on startup funding:
There’s been a shift from growth-at-all-costs to a focus on fundamentals. Investors are doubling down on infrastructure plays with deep tech, clear commercial value and strong margins. It is a more disciplined environment, which aligns well with our model.
- The technologies or innovations that excite me the most:
Artificial intelligence (AI) that augments rather than replaces. At Zamna, we're using AI to accelerate identity validation and enhance fraud detection across complex data sets. But what excites us most is how AI can elevate human decision-making, empowering airline agents and teams with sharper, faster insights, not replacing them. That’s where the real impact lies.
Tripkicks
Tripkicks is an add-on to business travel programs that provides the tools to influence traveler behavior.
CEO Jeff Berk:
- Our company highlights for 2025
50%+ revenue growth, which feels really good after working through some challenging year
Getting better at what we do: We're bringing in new tools and refining how we work so we can better serve our enterprise clients, while running more efficiently.
Planning for the future: We always try to listen to our clients and watch market shifts to see what adjustments we should make and how we should think about the future. That responsiveness has helped us stay relevant and keep finding ways to deliver value. We're doing the same process now, except it's less about changes in our market and more about changes in what's now possible.
- The biggest challenge I’m dealing with currently:
Making the most of our resources while growing. We've built something we believe is unique and our clients seem to agree, but now it's about scaling that thoughtfully. The challenge is growing without losing the personal touch that our enterprise clients expect from us, and doing that with the resources we have. It keeps us focused and creative about how we operate.
- My view on startup funding:
The current environment definitely rewards companies with real revenue and proven business models. For those of us who started pre-COVID, we had several years that didn't go as expected, and that reality influences how we think about timelines and capital going forward. But there is something to be said for the startups that made it through those years—it built resilience and required a focus on fundamentals. Business travel is a tough industry, but it was even tougher when it didn’t exist.
- The technologies or innovations that excite me the most:
It's hard to imagine anyone not saying AI—it truly is revolutionary. What excites me most is that it's enabling us to revisit ideas we might have subconsciously dismissed in the past because they just weren't realistic to scale. You can apply this thinking both ways—internally within your team and operations and externally in your product and client services. We're actively working on leveraging AI to improve our internal operations and efficiency and exploring how it could transform how we deliver our product to users—through personalized, intelligent content.
Troop
Troop is a cloud-based meeting planning and group travel logistics platform for companies that plan multiple in-person meetings a year.
CEO Dennis Vilovic:
- Our company highlights for 2025:
This year we released Troop Planner, expanding our platform beyond helping companies decide where to meet to supporting the entire planning process for small meetings—from agenda creation and attendee coordination to travel logistics and budgeting. Alongside this milestone, we’ve seen consistent month-over-month customer growth and have focused on strengthening our organization with new team members, better internal processes and infrastructure to scale effectively.
- The biggest challenge I’m dealing with currently:
Our greatest challenge, and biggest opportunity, has been managing a broad and ambitious product roadmap. We consistently balance speed and quality to the market with our long-term vision. Our guiding principle is simple: focus on what delivers real, immediate value to our customers while ensuring the product remains scalable and differentiated for the future.
- My view on startup funding:
The funding environment is more selective than it was four years ago. Investors are focused on strong business fundamentals and proven traction. We’ve been fortunate to have the continued support of our existing investors while also attracting new partners who believe in our mission. By staying disciplined with spending and growth, we’ve built resilience and positioned Troop as an attractive investment even in a cautious market.
- The technologies or innovations that excite me the most:
Transforming how meetings are planned and managed. In the travel industry, I am encouraged by how AI is driving personalization and transparency, helping companies plan with greater clarity and impact. Using AI also has benefits when it comes to our internal operations, especially since we’re a global and remote team; it helps keep our work efficient and on track.
Kyte
Kyte is an API platform helping airline and travel sellers to connect and distribute airline content.
CEO Alice Ferrari:
- Our company highlights for 2025:
Signing two major low-cost carriers to sell their content on our platform.
- The biggest challenge I’m dealing with currently:
Resource constraints to get more airlines on the platform.
- My view on startup funding:
If you are not using AI, it's harder than ever.
- The technologies or innovations that excite me the most:
I'm excited about MCP (Model Context Protocol), which standardizes how AI systems integrate with and access external data and tools. For an API-based company like ours, this unlocks tremendous opportunities over how Kyte can co-exist in the new world of AI.
The catch-up series continues
As we catch up with a selection of our other Hot Travel Startups since 2021 over the coming weeks, we will continue to look out for interesting AI initiatives, what their recent milestones have been and how they view the current startup funding landscape.