Journera nabs $11.6 million to move its tech platform into growth stage

Journera - one of PhocusWire’s Hot 25 Startups for 2020 - has raised $11.6 million in a Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz and B Capital, with participation from Pritzker Group Venture Capital and The Boston Consulting Group. All four investors participated in Journera’s Series A round in 2018.

Journera CEO Jeff Katz, founding CEO of Orbitz Worldwide and CEO of Swissair, says this fundraising effort began prior to the COVID-19 crisis, but the commitment from investors shows they continue to recognize the value in combining data from the entire travel journey to improve the customer experience. 

“The investor view is that what we are building ... has an important future,” he says. 

“The future as we see it is way more about the journey. The idea that I can board a flight and automatically be checked in by the hotel or my ride-share can be adjusted automatically because the ride-share operator knows about the rest of my journey, and so on. 

“The idea of a touchless journey is not new, but it is newly more relevant in a post-pandemic life.”

Katz says the platform also creates marketing efficiency for brands dealing with cuts to both staff and budgets because it enables them to be “more precise, more surgical in how you market ... in what customer gets served with what product.” 

Proceeds of the funding round will be used boost customer acquisition efforts – although Katz acknowledges this is “a bit of an awkward time” for growth.

“Post-pandemic I’d say there is a group of customers ... who are only focused on daily operations ... and then we see those who are really engaged in innovation, building a better business out of the pandemic than they had going in, and we are focused on those who are ready to engage in that world,” he says. 

Journera uses a pricing model that allows customers to “decide customer by customer, journey by journey, what benefit you’ll provide and pay for it there” – which Katz cites as an advantage as companies are more reluctant to make big upfront investments in new technology. 

To assist brands in understanding how recovery is progressing across the industry, Journera has created a “Recovery Analytics” product that is free for the next six months. Lodging, air and ground transportation providers that share their data can then access data from other verticals. 

In March, Journera launched JourneyVision, a solution to match hotel reservations to air, ground or other relevant reservations to drive better personalization. 

Journera’s commercial partners include Hilton, InterContinental Hotels Group, Marriott International, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, United Airlines and American Airlines. With this latest round the company has raised more than $26 million.