Despite a slowdown in funding for travel startups over the past couple of years, the brave continue to reimagine travel processes and emerge from stealth with new or improved concepts to address consumer or business pain points.
Since our first cohort of Hot 25 Travel Startups was published in 2018, PhocusWire has covered and continues to keep an eye on 150 companies across all travel segments and geographies.
The Hot 25 Travel Startups for 2025, sponsored by Allianz Partners, are no exception with companies from Africa, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, United Kingdom, United States and India all getting recognition this time around.
The combined PhocusWire-Phocuswright team, which began the process of narrowing down a list of more than 160 travel startups back in July, continues to look for companies who stand out for their innovation and market potential while also focusing on diversity in founders, sectors and geographies.
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This year, nine companies we are recognizing were founded in 2021, four were founded in 2022 and five were founded in 2023. Unsurprisingly, about 10 of the startups have been built using artificial intelligence or have already incorporated the technology into their development strategies. Other emerging technologies such as blockchain and decentralized ID are also represented.
We are now in the seventh year of publishing the Hot 25 Travel Startups. You can read coverage of our Hot Startups for 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020 and 2019.
Catching up on previous years
According to Phocuswright’s Travel Startups Interactive Database, collectively these Hot 25 companies have attracted total funding of $2.8 billion across 456 funding rounds in that time. The vast majority of the companies, 73.8%, operate in the B2B travel segment with the remainder offering services direct to consumers.
Naturally some of been acquired along the way, have merged with other companies and a small number are longer operating but the majority are still in business.
Data from Phocuswright‘s soon-to-be-released State of Travel Startups 2024 report provides some context around our spotlight on just 25 companies. According to that data, funding across the wider travel startup landscape dropped to an almost 10-year low in 2023, coming in at $5.2 billion.
For the third quarter of 2024, funding is at $4.2 billion putting it on track to match 2023 levels. The number of funding rounds is currently at around 186 for 2024 and is likely to reach 250 by the end of the year. The figure will be the lowest activity on record.
Also of note is that in 2024 funding to B2B companies has overtaken B2C for the first time, accounting for 51% of total funding as of Q3 2024.
The class of 2025
For each of the companies on this year’s list, we are sharing details provided by the founders in their own words – a description of the company, strategic goals for 2024 and lessons learned since founding. We’ve also included links to PhocusWire’s past coverage of these startups, as applicable.
Click on the company names below for details about each startup, what they have been doing and what they plan to do in the coming year.
*We would like to thank Phocuswright senior manager for research and innovation Mike Coletta for help with selecting the startups.
Phocuswright’s Innovation Platform
Phocuswright Innovation is a platform that fosters a vibrant and interconnected community of innovators, startups, investors and thought leaders contributing to the overall development of an innovation ecosystem in travel. Using this one link, startups can learn about all of the innovation related events and programs from Phocuswright and PhocusWire.
