Ground transportation specialist Busbud has secured $40
million in credit financing and formed a new parent company, Terra Mobility, to steer
the company’s growth.
The investment in the Canada-based company has come from
Vista Credit, part of Vista Equity Partners.
The formation of Terra Mobility combines consumer ground
transport booking platforms Busbud, Buson and Recorrido with an operating
system for ground travel operators called TerraOS.
The company said
TerraOS, which aims to help transport operators run more efficiently, brings
together the capabilities from it acquisitions of Betterez and Ratality. The technology
provides operators with ticketing, inventory management, artificial
intelligence (AI)-powered revenue management and demand forecasting and distribution.
Busbud acquired Buson in March 2024 and Ratality in May of the same year. The company previously acquired Recorrido in early 2022 and later that year merged with Betterez.
“Bus and
ground travel operators have shown incredible resilience over the past decade,
but the industry has changed a lot in the past three years,“ said LP Maurice, co-founder
and CEO of Terra Mobility. “Travelers are increasingly using AI tools to
research their trips and now expect seamless booking experiences, similar to booking
air or ride-hailing.”
Travel
industry veteran Erik Blachford has been named chairman of the board after
eight years on the company’s board of directors. Blachford has previously
served as president and CEO of Expedia and has board positions at Zillow, Fora
Travel and Hipcamp. Sam Shank, co-founder and former CEO of HotelTonight, also
joins the board of directors.
The $40
million credit financing will be used to accelerate the TerraOS roadmap, including AI capabilities, and to expand the company’s marketplace presence
across its core regions. It will also enable strategic acquisitions across the
ground transport ecosystem.
“Terra Mobility sits at the center of a large and
structurally underserved ground travel market, with a rare combination of
global consumer distribution and mission-critical operator software,” said Greg
Galligan, co-head of Vista Credit Partners and senior managing director of
Vista Equity Partners. “We are proud to support the team with flexible capital
as it builds the technology backbone of this industry.”
Terra Mobility has also announced Mathieu Provencher
as CFO. Provencher has experience scaling B2B software companies and
previously held similar roles outside the travel industry.
Terra Mobility has 270
employees across 26 countries. The company said roughly 300 operators in more than 15 countries use its
enterprise solutions. It added that its Busbud brand, alongside Buson
in Brazil and Recorrido in Chile and other parts of Latin America, connect more
than 100 million travelers with 4,000 operators.