WeTravel secures $27 million in funding
Travel is back on the investment radar, with both consumers and business users on the move after a long pandemic period of staying put. WeTravel, a startup that creates technology for the specific needs of group travel, announced today that it has raised $27 million in funding, which it will use to expand its business after experiencing rapid growth in the previous year. Left Lane Capital is leading the Series B round, with previous backers Swift Ventures and Base10 also participating, as well as angel investors such as Victor Jacobsson, one of Klarna’s co-founders.
WeTravel had previously only raised $7 million in the eight years since its inception. According to our sources, this Series B was made at a valuation of slightly more than $100 million. The company offers payments and other tools to approximately 3,000 businesses, with 500,000 customers using its platform. Transaction volumes have increased by 300%, and revenues are now three times what they were before COVID. CEO and co-founder Johannes Koeppel believes those figures will “at a conservative estimate” double again in 2023.
The fintech side of the business, according to Koeppel, is “the PayPal for travel,” and it’s complex enough that companies like PayPal, Stripe, and other big names in online payments haven’t really been able to address the specific segment of the market that WeTravel is serving, especially when used in tandem with the first part of its product set to coordinate itineraries and suppliers.