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Every week, we bring in combined startups that recently won or announced funding. Email gen editor Tim Mullaney at [email protected] if you have information about funding.
Swiss startup Chain4Travel argues that hotels want to be on the blockchain bandwagon and has just introduced its first venture capital circular to achieve this.
Based in Baar, about 35 miles from Zurich, the company has raised about $4. 5 million (4. 3 million Swiss francs) to expand blockchain generation for making purchases, from hotel rooms to microtransactions like a cup of coffee on a flight. Maps, Covid policy updates, and regional tourist information will be obtained in the form of non-fungible tokens, or NFT, virtual knowledge, stored on a blockchain-based network, that can be bought and sold.
Despite the hype, blockchain has struggled to gain a foothold in the industry, said Seth Borko, a senior analyst at Skift. The question is whether a decentralized network like blockchain, which is designed to settle invoices in cryptocurrencies more smoothly, is actually more secure. or less expensive than more centralized networks through incumbents that favor government-issued money.
“As far as I know, there are no genuine advantages to a distributed ledger,” Borko said. “The challenge is to build a network. Whether it’s distributed or not doesn’t matter. Expedia connects a group of hotels. [Global distribution facilities like Sabre provide knowledge to agents] do this. They simply do it with a centralized knowledge base.
Chain4Travel is run through an organization of industry veterans, led by Ralf Usbeck, who founded Peakwork, a holiday packaging generation company, and Traveltainment, a German booking engine generation provider that sold to Madrid-based global distribution service Amadeus in 2006. He continues to serve as CEO of Peakwork.
Chain4Travel plans to raise more money later this year by promoting its cryptocurrency, the company said in a statement. In the future, it plans to donate its intellectual assets to a base that will manage the blockchain-based network. A spokeswoman responded to an email by asking follow-up questions, adding the undisclosed identity of her venture capitalists.
The list of blockchain players in the industry is short. Perhaps the biggest success to date is Travala, a UK-based company that accepts credit card payments, regularly denominated in government currency and cryptocurrencies. Travala says its sales increased 571% in the fourth quarter of 2021 from a year earlier to $17. 4 million, driven by the Covid recovery and the addition of a luxury concierge unit. He said that 60% of his transactions are paid in cryptocurrency.
But some executives, such as TUI Group CEO Fritz Joussen, have argued that blockchain can break the near-monopoly control of reserve knowledge through some giant agencies and global distribution services.
Travala has benefited from a partnership with Expedia, the online giant, forged in 2020 and expanded last year, under which Expedia partner hotels can offer rooms on Travala’s online page and app.
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Several housing-like startups also announced new capital this week.
>>Hostfully, which offers software to vacation rental asset managers, has raised $4 million from an organization led by Disruption Ventures to upload a mobile app to its vendor and expand its sales team. The San Francisco-based company has now raised a total of $7 million.
>> Ukio, a Barcelona-based startup that offers apartments for rent in European cities, said it has raised 2. 5 million euros in debt financing through Extension Partners to expand to more cities. In the past, it had raised $9 million in a circular designed to capitalize on hard work trends from anywhere driven by the Covid pandemic.
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Tags: financing, startups, vcroundup
Photo credit: Zurich, Switzerland in the spring of 2020. Source: Photo by Kuhnmi Flickr / Creative Commons. Kuhnmi / Flickr / Creative Commons
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