Travelaer Raises 4.3 Million Euros to Improve Travel Industry Customer Experience

SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS, France, March 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Travelaer, a company that designs and builds products for the travel industry to improve customer experience, announced today it has raised 4.3 million Euros in a round of funding from a collection of investors led by Entrepreneur Venture and including Pléiade Venture, plus existing Travelaer investors Calypso Capital and Alderville.

"The travel industry has been forcing customers to book and manage travel online in the same way for the past 20 years," said Travelaer co-founder and CEO Mike Slone. "The big travel tech companies, which are focused more on transactions than customer experience, require airlines to adopt technology that leads their customers into unfortunate and unnecessarily bad digital experiences. We are here to change this."

The additional capital, according to Slone, is intended to help Travelaer speed innovation and expand geographically in order to more easily partner with airlines and travel companies.

"As experienced e-commerce, SaaS and travel-tech investors, we were seduced by Travelaer's ability to bring e-commerce best practices and the latest technologies to the travel industry in a great software solution," said Entrepreneur Venture Investment Director Charles Fossey. "We believe in their ability to disrupt their industry by transforming the traveler experience."

Travelaer, led by Slone and Chief Operating Officer Mana Coste, is building B2B2C digital products for the travel industry that enable its partners to improve customer experience across all digital channels, and increase revenue across all phases of travel, from bookings to in-flight and during a customer's trip. Existing Travelaer products include its Travel Paas, an online booking and trip management platform, and Comversational, an enterprise-level, automated messaging platform engaging chat-bots that enables travel companies to automate eCommerce and customer service via Facebook Messenger and other messaging channels.

"Icelandair has been working with Travelaer from day one," said Icelandair's Director of Digital Business Development, Guðmundur Guðnason. "We like their no-nonsense approach to solving things quickly, and because they are constantly on their toes with innovative ways to improve our customer's experience in a world that we must admit has a reputation of being a bit dated and complex."

Travelaer's 'Customer First' approach to designing and building software has provided new ways for its airline customers to take control of their digital experience, leading to improved customer satisfaction scores and increased conversion rates. According to Paulo Ornelas, Director of IT for Sata/Azores Airlines, "since moving our Internet booking engine to Travelaer's Travel Paas, we increased our mobile conversion rate by 200% and increased our per visit value in excess of 150%."

About Travelaer

Travelaer builds products for the travel industry designed to improve the customer experience, implementing a 'Customer First' approach to designing and building B2B2C software. Founded in 2013, Travelaer's Customers include Icelandair, Sata/Azores Airlines, El Al Israeli Airlines and Aeroport Nice Cote D/Azur. Current Travelaer products include Travel Paas, an airline online booking and trip management platform, and Comversational, an enterprise-level automated messaging platform (chat bots) that enables travel companies to automate commerce and customer service via Facebook Messenger and other conversational channels. For more information on Travelaer visit www.Travelaer.com

About Entrepreneur Venture

Established in 2000, Entrepreneur Venture is an independent AMF and AIFM licensed management company specializing in non-listed, owned and managed by its founders. It manages 3 FCPI, 4 FCPR and 27 Proximity Investment Funds, covering 12 metropolitan areas with total managed outstanding of more than € 600 million. A major player in SME bond financing, Entrepreneur Venture has completed more than 100 convertible bond issues over the past years. The fund management company has been able to develop a real expertise in this field, notably through its range of FCPR, successfully marketed since 2012. The FIP, with their 60% bond pocket, benefit directly from this know-how. The founders of Entrepreneur Venture Gestion are entrepreneurs who have successfully experienced the different stages of life of a company: creation or restructuring, sale or IPO. The members of the team carried out more than 150 investment operations, as minority partners, in companies of all sectors (industry, e-commerce, media, technology, services). They already made significant investment and exits in several travel-tech companies, including Traveldoo (acquired by Expedia), Gekko Holding (HCorpo, Teldar Travel, Infinite Hotel sold to HLD Private Equity), Ceetiz, Homerez. For more information: www.entrepreneurventure.com/

About Pléiade Venture

Pléiade Venture is a Venture Capital Company that invests in start-ups in amounts ranging from €100k to €2 million. While many financial institutions have deserted Venture Capital and fled to Development Capital or LBO, Pléiade Venture remained focused in the development of young companies, meeting their needs of long-term support. Since 1999, Pléiade Venture has brought together successful entrepreneurs with financial success as well as the motivation to pursue their entrepreneurial experience with venture capital. Some of these entrepreneurs were themselves funded by Pléiade Venture in the past. The current portfolio consists of fifteen companies in diversified sectors (except Biotechnology) on the entire French territory. The company, historically based in Paris, opened an office in Lille on the premises of Euratechnologies. For more information: www.pleiadeventure.com

Contact:
Mike Slone
+33 6 03 87 12 56
[email protected]

SOURCE Travelaer