Another interesting month and many more stories to share. We turned one this month, you can read a brief note about the journey here. We also put together a list of some of the most interesting startups we learned about in the past one year which you can find here. This month we also travelled to Kolkata and Hyderabad to host Startup Knockdown+ which turned out to be huge success. Here are some major stories from the month of July:
Airlines Technology team collecting the award from Shivam Shah
1- PSA Group invests in TravelerCar
Automobile industry as we know it now is going to be disrupted and that is why the car companies are expanding their footprint into other domains. In one such move, PSA Group has invested into car sharing company TravelerCar. It offers low cost parking to travellers at airports and stations or for free if they choose to rent out their cars to incoming travellers.
2- Guide on alternate marketing platforms for travel brands
Facebook is a great marketing platform but as the competition rises, it is getting increasingly tough to promote your brand on Facebook. While it still continues to hold relevance for the brands, there are some other platforms that brands should explore to boost their visibility.
3- Airlines Technology and Izifiso emerge as the winners of Startup Knockdown Kolkata
Earlier this month, we hosted the Kolkata edition of Startup Knockdown in association with TTF. After filtering through the pitches, all the judges picked Izifiso to be the winner. Izifiso is a platform that connects various domain experts that host educational tours with students and schools. Airlines Technology, an NDC aggregator was selected by Amadeus to be a part of Amadeus Next.
4- Pokemon Go is doing what Google Maps planned to do
Pokemon Go, a location based game, is making headlines all over the world. It has surpassed all descriptions of ‘viral’ and people are jumping on it even before official launch in many parts of the world. However, there is another aspect to it. The game holds the potential to drive real world footfall and various local businesses are leveraging that. We take a closer look.
5- Yatra to merge with Terrapin 3 Acquisition Corporation
Yatra Online announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement with Terrapin 3 to combine. The deal values Yatra at USD 218 million. The combined entity will continue to be led by Yatra co-founder Dhruv Shringi. This not only fuels Yatra with capital but also helps them move towards IPO without the uncertainty of list pricing.
6- Travelibro plans to make scattered vacation photos a thing of past
Our vacation photos are usually dumped into a single folder to be filtered sometime in future. Some of them make it to social media platforms while other continue to sit there for playing the guessing game sometime in future. Travelibro addresses that by recording your trips while on the go without requiring any inputs. This allows for logging the trips in a better way while enabling other travellers to draw inspiration from the trips.
7- Routern, Guidezie and India Outtabox emerged on top in Startup Knockdown Hyderabad
Followed by the Kolkata edition of the event, the Hyderabad edition of the event saw more startups in travel space. India Outtabox was the common choice of judges. It focusses on offering highly customised tours to inbound travellers. Routern was selected by Amadeus to be a part of Amadeus Next. Guidezie has been invited by Hyderabad Angels for elevated round of pitching.
8- Expedia acquired travel photography platform Trover
Expedia has acquired Trover, a platform where travellers share their photographs to inspire other travellers. It offers beautiful travel content and social experience and could be a good addition to Expedia’s portfolio.
9- Namah Resorts hosts an exciting blogger engagement campaign
Influencer marketing, if done right, can help travel brands boost their online presence. Namah, a luxury resort operated by DS Group. The campaign was themed around International Yoga Day in sync with the brand’s message of health and wellness and it portrayed it very well.
10- Tesla and Mobileye parting ways
Tesla and Mobileye have announced that they won’t continue to work together for the driverless car technology on Tesla’s cars. Mobileye is working with many other manufacturers and has recently announced a partnership with BMW and Intel.
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