Tripscout raises $14M, launches hotel booking through Instagram

Tripscout is launching a hotel booking platform that co-founder and CEO Konrad Waliszewski says will offer private rates at discounts of up to 75% below the best publicly available rates.

The rates will only be accessible through a private, closed user group that travelers join by sending a direct message with the word “hotel” to Tripscout’s @hotel Instagram account – or one of the more than 100 secondary accounts the company also operates such as @paris.explore and @newyorkcity.explore – which combined have more than 30 million followers. The booking function is launching today on 20 accounts and rolling out to the remainder in the next two months.

Once that message is sent, the user is connected to a chatbot that links to a booking platform with typical search and filter functions and global inventory from bedbanks, online travel agencies and other suppliers. The booking platform link is unique to the account that sent the initial direct message.

“Social media is the new SEO, yet the legacy travel industry has been built on transactional interactions, driven by billions of annual advertising spend. We’ve approached the market quite differently. We’ve built a large, passionate and loyal audience of frequent travelers, and we’re excited to launch these game-changing private offers on Instagram, so they can travel more, travel better, and spend less in a post-pandemic world,” Waliszewski says.

Along with this launch, the company is announcing it has raised nearly $14 million. Of that, $10.25 million is Series A funding led by existing investors Accomplice and Corazon Capital, with participation from additional existing investors MATH Venture Partners, New Stack Ventures and M25, and $3.5 million is venture debt from Triple Point Capital.

Waliszewski says the company will use the funding to continue to develop the booking platform, to grow followers across all of its accounts with a goal of having 100 million next year and to invest in partnerships with travel content creators and influencers to add more “interesting and compelling” photos and videos to its accounts and for its hotel partners.

“Social media is the new SEO, yet the legacy travel industry has been built on transactional interactions, driven by billions of annual advertising spend,” Waliszewski says.

“We’ve approached the market quite differently. We’ve built a large, passionate and loyal audience of frequent travelers, and we’re excited to launch these game-changing private offers on Instagram, so they can travel more, travel better, and spend less in a post-pandemic world.”

“Tripscout recognized early on that a shift in user behavior in travel created an opportunity to serve travelers where they were now spending time online,” says Phil Schwarz of Corazon Capital and former CMO of Tinder. 

“Social media is such an incredibly powerful platform for travel inspiration and discovery, with 87% of millennials generating their travel inspiration from social platforms. Among these, Instagram has clearly proven to be the most important platform for acquiring and retaining an audience in travel. Tripscout has not only quietly become the global leader in travel on social media, but it has also built significant value-creating technology.”

Tripscout’s last funding round of $2.3 million was in March 2021.