This year was a great one for travel startups - especially in the late stages.
Investor support for late-stage startups skyrocketed, with the number of funding rounds beyond series D more than doubling year-over-year.
The annual number of funding rounds had been on a downward trend during previous years, but the average dollar amount invested per funding round has increased from $24 million in 2018 to $37 million in 2019.
This shift to later-stage startups is featured in Phocuswright’s State of Travel Startups report and the data is in the State of Travel Startups Interactive Database.
But will the good times continue for late stage players?
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At the 2019 Phocuswright Conference, Mike Coletta (manager for research and innovation at Phocuswright) and Chetan Kapoor (research analyst for Asia Pacific at Phocuswright) forecasted trends for the next year.
Coletta says that funding will likely have “an overall decline” in 2020, with more funding coming back into the early stages.
Early stage startups could also be a potential solution for developing the interconnected trip.
“I think whole of the pieces of the puzzle will come from these early stage companies who are tackling these problems in a pretty novel way,” says Kapoor.”
Watch the full discussion:
A Conversation On: Travel startups (PhocusWire @ Phocuswright Conference 2019)