商旅计划应用 Travo 获 240 万美元融资 Startup pitch: Travo raises $2.4M to simplify business travel
这家 base 在洛杉矶的出行应用 Travo 便将商旅预订流程化，通过数据分析，帮助商旅人士快速找到匹配的航班、食宿和本地交通，并且实现动态打包。
举例来说，一个人要在周四上午 10 点，在巴黎参加一个活动，下午 5 点结束，那么这里面需要的相关信息：
你知道什么时候达到和离开？
达到之后，你准备做什么？
你要住在哪里？
活动完结后，根据航班时间你什么时候赶赴机场？
总预算是多少，结合舒适度、价格、时间来看又是怎样？
而 Travo 得到这些信息之后，能够在一分钟左右构建你的出行行程。Travo 在 11月 上线了 beta 版本，目前仍是邀请制。
近日，Travo 也宣布完成 240 万美元种子融资，投资方包括 Great Oaks Ventures、Baroda Ventures、Valence Ventures、 TYLT Lab，以及个人投资人，包括高盛执行董事（managing director）Rob Sweeney ，IVP 投资 GP Dennis Phelps 等。
关于盈利模式，Travo 会跟 OTA 或者酒店等上游资源合作，达成利益分成。创始人 Tae Lee 预计，商旅市场目前能占到整个旅行市场的 1/3，他们只是初步聚焦在出行计划工具上面。
不过，Travo 在国外也会面临竞争对手，比如 NexTravel、Rocketrip以及潜在的 Expensify。另外还有 Cinch Travel 和30 Seconds to Fly 这样的小型公司。
本文参考：Tnooz.com 作者：孝羽，如若转载，请注明出处：http://36kr.com/p/5040725.html
以下是英文访谈：
A Q&A with Tae Lee, founder:
Tell us how you founded the company, why and what made you decide to jump in and create the business.
For many small businesses I’ve been a part of, signing up with a travel agency or a managed travel service is very low on the priority list.
At the same time, I’ve always felt that the gap for trip planning assistance between managed corporate travel vs. DIY leisure focused OTAs is too great. Even though I had no experience in the travel industry, I knew there was a significant market being underserved.
I’ve had successes with startups bringing innovation in a wide-range of industries. I’ve previously grown companies from 20 to 250 employees as the chief operator and been part of three successful exits in digital media, ad tech, and consumer electronics. So why not travel?
After all, the trait I saw for what determines an entrepreneur to bring disruptive technology to market has never been industry experience. More than anything, every successful startup I’ve been part of had one common trait: speed. Move fast, fail fast, and when something works, as Jeff Weiner would say, “next play”.
Size of the team, names of founders, management roles and key personnel?
Travo is comprised of 10 employees. Every employee is in product and/or engineering with a background in big data, game theory, and algorithms.
Funding arrangements?
We raised a $2.4 million funding round led by leading institutional and angel investors.
Estimation of market size?
Business Travel is approximately 1/3rd of travel – but we start with a much smaller segment of business travel. Our initial target market is focused on travel planners and travellers within a specific demographic we have yet to disclose.
Competition?
Short term, it’s everyone trying to make travel planning fast and easy. There are a LOT of solutions out there and we’ll learn from their successes and failures.
Long-term, our competitors are corporate travel agencies who currently help business travellers plan and book travel.
Although our product won’t be able to completely replicate the services offered by travel agents, we believe many travellers prefer to have control over their trips as long as it’s fast and easy.
Revenue model and strategy for profitability?
We have partnerships with some of the best OTAs and directly with brands in the hotel space. As we do not book on our site, we’re happy to pass along highly qualified traffic to our partners for commissions.
What problem does the business solve?
Let’s say you’re going to an event in Paris that starts at 10AM on a Tuesday and ends 5PM on a Wednesday. Now think about the logistics for that trip.
Do you know what day you need to leave to get there on time?
Once you’re there, how are you going to get around?
Where are you going to stay?
After your meetings, based on traffic conditions and your transportation, when are you going to need to leave to get to the airport on time so you don’t miss your flight?
How much is all this going to cost, and does it combine the right level of comfort, price, and timing that is in tune with a business trip?
With Travo, we can generate a scientifically calculated end-to-end itinerary in around a minute so you can feel confident in your trip planning.
How did the initial idea evolve and were there changes/any pivots along the way in the early stages?
We tested many features and even platforms at different stages of developing the product. In the beginning we started too wide and too feature heavy.
In fact, our first version of the product (which was completed in February) had more features than our product does today.
However, I believe this is a death sentence for many startups. In the beginning, nobody knows who you are. Which means, if it takes you longer than a sentence to describe what your product does, people tune out and don’t know what you really do.
Throughout all the changes and pivots we’ve made, the biggest realization we came to was determining we WON’T do.
For example, we don’t do post-booking itineraries like TripIt or Worldmate does. We don’t do bookings on our site because that would lead to a need for a massive customer service team (which is not our core competency).
We don’t do corporate travel restrictions and backend financial integrations that companies such as Egencia and many others are doing. Rather, we are partnering with the best companies who do these things extremely well.
Why should people or companies use the business?
We make business travel planning simple, fast, and cost effective.
What is the strategy for raising awareness and the customer/user acquisition (apart from PR)?
We’re going to be razor focused on a particular demographic of users. This means marketing at events that they attend, being where they are on the web, and offering promotions that encourage change in user behavior.
Where do you see the company in three years time and what specific challenges do you anticipate having to overcome?
We’re not interested in turning TRAVO into a nice little business. I think the investors and I started this company to shoot for the moon in what is arguably the largest and the most competitive industry.
So, in three years we’ll either be out of business or we’ll be one of the most successful startups in travel.
I’m obviously betting on the latter but it won’t be easy. The biggest challenge with any travel startup is customer acquisition and how much your spending to acquire that customer.
The other challenge comes after you’ve successfully acquired a customer to try your product – how you’re going to change user behavior?
What is wrong with the travel, tourism and hospitality industry that it requires a startup like yours to help it out?
I think “wrong” is a strong word as there’s pretty much a solution to any travel need at this point. Companies in this space have been around for a long time and have innovated a great deal.
However, there are parts of the travel industry that I think would benefit from applying more focus.
For us, that is helping business travellers with the actual planning of the trip before they make selections to book.
Logistically, it’s pretty complex piecing together a unique trip based on preferences of the traveller while simultaneously taking into account price, location and time requirements.
What other technology company (in or outside of travel) would you consider yourselves most closely aligned to in terms of culture and style… and why?
One of the companies I have a ton of respect for in the trip planning space is Roadtrippers. They have a fantastic road trip planning tool that is easy to use and like Travo, looks at your trip from start to finish and recalculates based on choices you make.
Developing this product, we can certainly appreciate how complex things are to make a product like that run smoothly.
I’m not sure how big the road-trip market segment is in the US, but these guys do 3+ million unique users per month. That’s a whole lot of Roadtrippers!
Which company would be the best fit to buy your startup?
Great thing about the travel industry is there is no shortage of companies making investments in the travel space. I think software companies from Microsoft to pure-play travel companies like Priceline all can make acquisition in this space.
As for us, it’s not a topic we even think about. We’re more focused on turning Travo into the best solution for business travellers and building a profitable, fast growing business that can stand on its own.
Describe your startup in three words?
Business travel simplified
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2015年12月06日
创业公司
在线人力资源服务平台Allay获得340万美金种子轮投资
Allay成立于2014年，总部位于旧金山。Allay为一家在线人力资源和福利平台网站。需要保险和福利的公司可以通过此在线平台可以完成无纸化劳动合同签订并为员工制定包括医保在内的多项保险服务。本次领投的公司为BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners，以及Sandbox Industries, 500 Startups, Arnold Capital和多位独立天使投资人参投。
评语：看起来国外学习之风也是非常盛行啊~~都在学习zenefits
Allay, a San Francisco-based HR management platform provider, raised $3.4m in seed funding.
The round was led by BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners with participation from Sandbox Industries, 500 Startups, AngelPad’s Thomas Korte, Ryan Holmes, Geoff Entress, Arnold Capital and others.
The company intends to use the funds to expand in the U.S. health insurance market.
Founded in 2014 by Julien Emery and Andrew Draper, Allay provides provides an HR platform which enables employers to onboard new hires, sign documents, select and enroll in the most relevant benefit plans for each individual and/or group, and provide HR and benefits administration and compliance. The solution can work with any broker that an employer wants. In addition, the company is also building out its own preferred partner broker network to ensure employers are getting trustworthy broker/advisors.
Bento：小公司的员工财务管理便当小型创业公司员工往往需要身兼数职，在企业开展业务的同时员工也会产生各种费用。对这样的需求，大公司可以通过给员工申请公司卡和通过财务人员的对账报账来进行处理，但如果小公司也玩这一套，从成本和便捷性上都吃不消。对此，一家名为Bento for Business的创业公司推出了针对小企业的员工财务管理解决方案：Bento MasterCard。
Bento MasterCard是Bento和MasterCard合作推出的一种虚拟预付卡。说到虚拟预付卡，其实在美国的很多超市都可以买到虚拟卡，用户可以往卡里进行充值当借记卡使用（之前雷锋网为了购买海外产品还专门买过这样的虚拟卡）。然而Bento的不同之处在于，小企业的创始人可以在网上方便管理每张卡片的额度，一键开启/关闭卡片的使用，对消费情况进行统计汇总和分析，了解花费的数目和构成，更神奇的是，你还可以自行授权每张卡片的用途，例如说，你设定了某位员工的卡片只能采购办公用品或者加油，如果他瞒着你下馆子，当他拿出公司卡要结账的时候，这样不符合授权的交易将会被自动拒绝，同时企业主也会收到一条信息，从而也杜绝了员工滥用的可能性。更重要的是，由于每张卡片可以方便设置额度、用途等，由于卡片丢失或者卡片信息泄露造成的财务问题（如盗刷）可能性也会大大降低。
Bento CEO Farhan Ahmad称，他们推出这一针对小企业的产品是因为他们认为小企业是经济的基石，不仅承担了大量的就业机会，还给整个经济带来了活力。但相对于大企业，银行对小企业的服务就有点跟不上趟，例如很多小企业无法申请到公司信用卡，而通过他们的方案，小企业也可以根据自己的需要方便地控制采购费用，而无需依赖于企业或CEO的评分。如同其名字一样（“Bento”在英文中的意思是快餐盒饭），Bento的目标是为中小企业提供快捷、便利而且经济的员工财务管理服务。
费用方面，Bento for Business采取的是对卡片收取一定费用，如图所示，公司申请一张卡的时候是免费的，2-5张卡每月收取29美元的服务费，6-20张卡收取每月79美元服务费，如果超过20张卡还有特殊通道，再加上附加的财务统计功能，无形中省了一个人做账，对于小企业来说还是很经济实惠的。
未来发展计划：
Bento for Business计划进一步扩展其针对小企业的其他金融服务项目和为小企业提供金融工具，如：开发票、记账、信用卡管理等，未来Bento for business还计划与银行进行合作，为符合条件的企业提供申请贷款等服务。
融资情况：
Bento for Business是目前已获得250万美元种子融资，目前员工5人，。
来源：雷锋网
作者：硅谷锋向标
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