Investors have poured more than US$12 billion into travel startups founded over the past decade â€" and more than half of that funding was raised in 2014 alone.
According to Phocuswright's Travel Innovation: The State of Startups 2005-2014, which tracks nearly 1,000 travel companies launched worldwide from 2005 â€" 2014, massive bets on ground transportation and private accommodation innovators drove a record $6.4 billion in travel startup investment in 2014.
Following a broader trend among venture capitalists and other investors, the size of individual funding rounds for travel startups has ballooned in recent years.
Uber tops them all with last year's $2.4 billion round, but a growing number of travel companies have attracted investments into the hundreds of millions.
"Despite the higher investment ceiling, the lion's share of capital is flowing to a relatively small group of companies, primarily in the ground transportation and private accommodations segments," says Phocuswright's senior research analyst, Cathy Schetzina Walsh.
"Among these are Uber, Didi Dache-Kuaidi Dache, Airbnb, Lyft, GrabTaxi, and Ola Cabs â€" each with a valuation of $1 billion or higher."
Led by the U.S., North America and Asia Pacific have captured a disproportionate share of investor attention. The two regions combined are home to 67% of startups, but receive 81% of funding.Â
Phocuswright's Travel Innovation: The State of Startups 2005 â€" 2014 provides a thorough analysis of 993 digital travel startups featuring technology, commercial or segment innovation, including information on funding, vertical/horizontal trends, and regional analysis.
About Phocuswright Inc.
Phocuswright is the travel industry research authority on how travelers, suppliers and intermediaries connect. Independent, rigorous and unbiased, Phocuswright fosters smart strategic planning, tactical decision-making and organizational effectiveness.
Phocuswright delivers qualitative and quantitative research on the evolving dynamics that influence travel, tourism and hospitality distribution. Our marketplace intelligence is the industry standard for segmentation, sizing, forecasting, trends, analysis and consumer travel planning behavior. Every day around the world, senior executives, marketers, strategists and research professionals from all segments of the industry value chain use Phocuswright research for competitive advantage.
To complement its primary research in North and Latin America, Europe and Asia, Phocuswright produces several high-profile conferences in the United States and Europe, and partners with conferences in China and Singapore. Industry leaders and company analysts bring this intelligence to life by debating issues, sharing ideas and defining the ever-evolving reality of travel commerce.
The company is headquartered in the United States with Asia Pacific operations based in India and local analysts on five continents. Phocuswright is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Northstar Travel Media, LLC. (116 32nd Street, 14th Floor, New York, NY 10001 United States).
