{"id":4428,"date":"2019-01-30T19:21:12","date_gmt":"2019-01-30T19:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.paymentfacilitator.com\/?p=4428"},"modified":"2022-02-24T22:18:13","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T22:18:13","slug":"travel-vertical-taking-flight-with-recent-funding-rounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/archive\/travel-vertical-taking-flight-with-recent-funding-rounds\/","title":{"rendered":"Travel Vertical Taking Flight with Recent Funding Rounds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>In the PF world,\nventure capital and private equity firms are often drawn to companies who are\nsolving problems for specific verticals in&nbsp;<\/strong><strong>creative ways<\/strong><strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Recently, software\ncompanies looking to solve those problems and&nbsp;improve the customer experience\nfor the travel industry have been garnering attention from investors<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last week, travel payments provider Uplift <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uplift.com\/article\/uplift-closes-123m-equity-financing-round-for-travel\">announced<\/a>\nthat it had received $123 million in funding. Uplift enables consumers to pay\nfor their travel bookings over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cUplift\u2019s focused business model of bringing flexible\npayments to travel is a winner,\u201d Jamie McJunkin, General Partner at Madrone\nCapital Partners, which led the funding round said in the press release.&nbsp; \u201cOur confidence to invest was driven by an\nexperienced management team, a very large market opportunity and the\ncompetitive advantages driven by the innovations Uplift has brought to the\ntravel market.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Uplift\u2019s Pay Monthly financing option is offered through\npartnerships with travel websites. Consumers who wish to use the option can\nchoose Pay Monthly at checkout, where they are then directed to a loan\napplication. According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uplift.com\/terms\">terms<\/a> on its\nweb site, the company offers the installment loans in partnership with CBW\nBank. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Along with its funding round, the company also announced new\nrelationships with several partners, including KAYAK and Flightsearch.com. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Coming at the travel space from a slightly different\ndirection, travel ecommerce platform Switchfly also recently secured additional\nfunding. While the company did not disclose the funding amount, the investment\ngave the firms, Golub Capital and L Capital LLC, a controlling equity stake, it\nsaid in its <a href=\"https:\/\/switchfly.com\/content\/switchfly-secures-investment-drive-company-growth-and-meet-demand-next-generation-travel\">announcement<\/a>.\nWhile it was just announced, the funding took place last October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Switchfly platform connects its clients with its\ninventory of flights, car rentals, hotels, insurance and other ancillary\nproducts. According to its <a href=\"https:\/\/switchfly.com\/managed-service\">web\nsite<\/a>, it operates as the merchant of record for its clients. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSwitchfly\u2019s travel ecommerce platform already enjoys a\nsterling reputation and is used by some of the world\u2019s most sophisticated\ntravel and financial services companies,\u201d Bart Foster, managing partner of L\nCapital LLC, who is also now the chairman of Switchfly\u2019s board of directors said\nin a statement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe new financing allows Switchfly to invest in new product\ncapabilities and continue improving its services for clients, as well as\naccelerating the company\u2019s growth rate.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the PF world, venture capital and private equity firms are often drawn to companies who are solving problems for specific verticals in creative ways.\ufeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1015],"tags":[151,313,461,643,856,904,931],"class_list":["post-4428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","tag-cbw-bank","tag-flightsearch-com","tag-kayak","tag-payment-facilitator","tag-switchfly-platform","tag-travel-payments","tag-uplift"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4428"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8330,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4428\/revisions\/8330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}