Startup Stage: FigFinder AI wants to simplify trip planning for travelers and agents

FigFinder AI

FigFinder AI offers both B2B and B2C options, helping travelers build personalized trip guides and giving travel professionals an AI assistant to streamline client inquiries. 

The startup is based in London and Sydney, with founder and CEO Ankita Sharma highlighting plans to grow FigFinder into a globally recognized brand.

What is your 30-second pitch to investors?

FigFinder is a personalized travel platform designed for every stage of a journey, whether travelers are still planning, have already booked or are already at their destination.

Through guided prompts, Fig creates a personalized travel guide around each traveler's actual trip, bringing together day-by-day plans, destination insights, packing, local transport, safety, connectivity and experiences.

Alongside the consumer platform, FigFinder Pro helps travel professionals turn incoming client inquiries into structured, quote-ready briefs.

Our vision is to make FigFinder the go-to travel companion for planning, preparing and exploring.

Describe both the business and technology aspects of your startup.

For consumers, Fig combines AI with structured prompts to understand the traveler, their trip and where they are in their journey. It creates a personalized guide containing information relevant to them, without requiring complex AI prompts or searching across multiple platforms.

FigFinder Pro addresses a different workflow. Travel professionals paste an existing client enquiry from channels such as email or WhatsApp; Pro extracts known requirements, identifies missing information, suggests follow-up questions and creates a structured client brief.

Long term, FigFinder aims to connect traveler intent, contextual guidance and relevant parts of the wider travel ecosystem.

Give us your SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of the company.

Strengths: Travel-specific guided experience, personalized guides, usefulness across multiple travel stages, B2C and B2B products, and a founder with international travel and technology experience.

Weaknesses: Early-stage brand awareness, limited resources and acquisition channels still being validated.

Opportunities: AI-assisted travel adoption, creator distribution, tourism and hospitality partnerships, travel ecosystem collaborations and B2B expansion.

Threats: Established travel platforms, general-purpose AI, high acquisition costs and changing consumer behavior.

Our differentiation is not simply AI generation; it is a guided, travel-specific experience designed to remain useful throughout the journey.

What travel pain points are you trying to alleviate from both the customer and industry perspectives?

Travelers piece together trips across search engines, blogs, social media, maps, booking platforms and AI conversations. This creates information overload and fragmented information that is difficult to reference later.

FigFinder brings relevant information into one personalized guide and adapts to the traveler's stage. Someone planning needs different information from someone already booked or currently at their destination.

For the industry, travel businesses often receive incomplete inquiries requiring repetitive follow-up. FigFinder Pro helps professionals analyze those inquiries, identify missing information, generate relevant follow-up questions and create structured briefs more efficiently.

Now that the product is built, what's your strategy for customer acquisition?

Our priority is real-world usage, feedback and finding repeatable distribution channels.

Consumer acquisition combines SEO and GEO-focused content, short-form social content, UGC, creator partnerships, referrals and travel industry collaborations. FigFinder also has Creator and Refer & Earn programs designed to turn creators and users into distribution partners.

For FigFinder Pro, acquisition is targeted through direct outreach to travel agencies, DMCs and tour operators, product trials and industry partnerships.

The goal is to identify channels that consistently attract customers who use FigFinder, purchase, return and recommend it.

Tell us what process you've gone through to establish a genuine need for your company and the size of the addressable market.

FigFinder grew from firsthand experience of extensive international travel and the recurring problem of researching destinations across disconnected platforms.

Since developing the MVP, user testing and feedback have shaped the product. Importantly, travelers who had already booked flights and accommodation still found value in personalized destination guidance. This expanded FigFinder beyond planning into three stages: planning, pre-departure and in-destination use.

The opportunity therefore extends beyond travelers making bookings; people need information and guidance throughout their journeys. On the B2B side, agencies, DMCs and tour operators provide an additional market for technology that helps structure and progress client inquiries 

How and when will you make money?

FigFinder has consumer and B2B monetization models and has begun generating consumer revenue.

Travelers can use the guided experience and preview their trip before purchasing a complete personalized guide at a low price.

FigFinder Pro operates as a SaaS product for travel professionals, with paid plans for analyzing inquiries and creating structured, quote-ready briefs.

Longer term, relevant travel partnerships and commercial integrations could provide additional revenue where they enhance the traveler experience. This creates potential across consumer purchases, recurring B2B subscriptions and travel-industry partnerships.

What are the backgrounds and previous achievements of the founding team?

FigFinder was founded by Ankita Sharma, a technology business/product analyst with experience delivering digital, data and technology initiatives across New Zealand, the U.K. and Australia.

Her career spans banking, financial services, utilities and global sport, including Formula 1, Lotto New Zealand and Vector Energy. Her experience includes digital products, data platforms, stakeholder management and translating complex requirements into practical technology solutions.

She has also served in elected public office in the U.K., adding experience in public leadership, community engagement and working across diverse stakeholder groups.

She also brings extensive international travel experience, combining technology delivery experience with firsthand understanding of how travelers research and navigate trips across different countries.

How have you addressed diversity and inclusion within your business?

FigFinder is designed for a global traveling population rather than one traveler archetype.

Its guided experience allows travelers to communicate individual preferences and requirements, adapting guidance to different budgets, ages, travel styles, group compositions and relevant dietary or accessibility needs.

Travelers also have different needs depending on their stage of travel. We already work with diverse creators and partners.

Understanding different cultures, circumstances and traveler behaviors is fundamental to a global travel product.

What's been the most difficult part of founding the business so far?

Distribution has been the biggest challenge.

Building an MVP is only the beginning. The harder task is reaching the right customers in a crowded environment and identifying acquisition channels that produce genuine usage rather than vanity metrics.

This has led us to test creators, referrals, SEO/GEO, UGC, partnerships and direct B2B outreach. It has also demonstrated how closely distribution and product development are connected: Real-user feedback has already changed FigFinder and broadened our understanding of when travelers find it valuable.

Generally, travel startups face a fairly tough time making an impact. Why are you going to be one of the lucky ones?

FigFinder's opportunity is to create a travel-specific experience that is guided, personalized, easy to reference and useful throughout the journey.

Travelers don't need to engineer prompts or repeatedly search disconnected sources; Fig structures guidance around their actual trip.

Crucially, FigFinder doesn't stop being useful once flights and accommodation are booked. It adapts across planning, pre-departure and in-destination stages.

FigFinder Pro extends the opportunity by solving a complementary problem for travel professionals. Ultimately, success will depend on execution, distribution and responding to real user behavior rather than assumptions.

A year from now, what state do you think your startup will be in?

A year from now, I want FigFinder to have progressed from early validation into a growing travel-tech platform with an active customer base, measurable repeat usage and proven acquisition channels.

For consumers, the goal is for FigFinder to be useful while planning, after booking and while exploring a destination. For FigFinder Pro, I want travel agencies, DMCs and tour operators regularly turning incoming inquiries into structured, quote-ready briefs.

Most importantly, we should have meaningful behavioral and commercial data showing what drives acquisition, retention, referrals, revenue and sustainable growth.

What is your endgame? (Going public, acquisition, growing and staying private, etc.)

The ambition is to build FigFinder into a globally recognized travel-tech platform and consumer travel brand. Rather than building towards a predetermined exit, the priority is creating a product travelers repeatedly use and a sustainable business across consumer and B2B revenue.

Long term, FigFinder could become a personalized travel layer people turn to throughout their journey, while FigFinder Pro provides complementary technology for the travel businesses serving them.

At sufficient scale, several paths could emerge, including remaining an independent growth company, deeper integration with major travel ecosystems, strategic acquisition or eventually accessing public markets.

For now, the goal is simple: make FigFinder a travel brand people recognize, trust and return to wherever they are in their journey.