Summer is the hot time to travel. Over the past decade, more than 1,200 digital travel companies have been launched worldwide (according to The State of Travel Startups 2016 research). For most startups, the entrepreneurial dream leads to the struggle for relevance and market share. From company-ending failure to industry-altering success, their stories give clues to the direction and future of travel.
So we’ve decided to pick the most interesting Ukrainian travel startups. The idea behind each of them is unique. That’s the reason they get investments and coverage in the most influential media outlets. Let’s find out more about TripMyDream, 2Event.com, Relocateme, Budgy, Fluger.
[dt_divider style=”thick” /]TripMyDream
TripMyDream is a Ukrainian company that promises to find tourists the best deals for their money, has been declared the Best Travel Startup of Seedstars World 2015. The company won up to $500,000 in equity investment during the Seedstars Summit 2015 in Lausanne, Switzerland. Co-founders Andrey Burenok and Taras Polishchuk started work on the project in 2013. The first public web-version of the service went online in May 2015.
The search engine knows where, when and why to travel, it finds the best prices and helps to buy tickets in a click. Those travelers who are undecided on where to go, who hate wasting time on browsing dozens of websites would appreciate the online service which makes trip planning experience easier, relevant and inspiring. Did you know that travel planning is a major pain point for 49% of travelers, they spend about 29 days visiting 20+ websites during the research and planning phase?
TripMyDream’s ultimate goal is to become an upper-funnel service (one-stop shop) and reduce the number of offers proposed to customers and, at the same time, increase their relevancy. The start-up is inspiring for traveling and proves that it is not always pricey.
[dt_divider style=”thick” /]2Event.com
2EVENT — is a free social network service where you can buy tickets for any kind of transport, buy a ticket to the event, hotel booking, find companions and even find new friends.
The service is available on the web and mobile (free mobile iPhone and Android apps). Easily search for travel companions to help you find an interesting event and buy tickets cheaper, as many organizers provide discounts for groups, so you are able to reduce the cost of travel and hotel reservations. These companions can become your good friends in the future.
Mobile social network for travel companions 2EVENT unites the functionality of such sites as Eventbrite, Ticketforevent, Timepad, as well as mobile applications for the travel companions, such as Bizzabo, Attendify, Omyconf. The aim was to combine the best features to create a better product on the market and make it free.
The startup has managed to reach 20% growth since September 2015 till May 2016 with no marketing budget (the revenue amounted to $310 K). 2EVENT founder Yaroslav Maxymovych, serial entrepreneur with the impressive successful projects list, attracted total of $450 K investments. At the moment, the team consists of 7 developers and 8 sales managers.
[dt_divider style=”thick” /]Relocateme
We thought this startup should be interesting for the most Ukrainian IT specialists and break the frame of usual travel service. Relocateme is a niche IT recruitment agency founded in 2012 aimed to connect innovative software companies with great software engineers around the world.
Aggregated tech jobs in Europe and verification of “relocation package” for international software engineers. Relocateme.eu is the right partner for those software companies which are planning to grow and change their industry or at least slightly make it better.
The main idea of Relocateme is to connect software development companies in Europe Union with highly-skilled software engineers whom they were not able to find themselves. The company’s responsibilities also include maintenance of all the paperwork required during relocation (working visa, tax application, resident permit, etc.), which simplifies the deal for both employer and the employee.
At the moment Relocateme has clients in 7 countries (Netherlands, Germany, UK, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Ukraine). All the clients are different: some of them are small and ambitious startups, others are huge worldwide leaders in the industry. The team of enthusiastic professionals aspires to fill the positions that stay open for quite a while and help IT specialists and their families relocate to the countries of EU.
Budgy
It’s a finance-based travel companion. Using travel and expenditure history, it can budget your trip, calculate projected expenses and offer support in your travels. The analysis is based on data collected through Budgy App, an app created for tracking and sharing common budgets in the course of the travels, as well as for compiling easy and accurate reports.
The mission of the project is to let friends stay friends even when the money is on the line.
Budgy is a free app that helps to manage budget and expenses for solo, business, and group travels. Budgy is syncing your friends to record and see statistics of all the shared transactions and exchanges to make travels more fun with proper budgeting and tracking of spending.
Record transactions and payable amount, manage finances efficiently, track trip budgets easily with organised stats. No more reminders, receipts, and spreadsheets! Let friends stay friends while traveling, splitting the bill, or in any situation where money is involved.
This is especially handy when a budget has repeated payments over extended periods of time, or features numerous positions, which are difficult to keep track. Budgy is not a standard budget app. You won’t find currency converters, calculators and expenditure analysis.
Everything is simply kept organized, so you know how much you owe to your friend after a visit to a restaurant, taxi ride or a snack during a Disneyland visit.
The team of Budgy consists of about 10 people driven by Dmitry Kostyukov, CEO / Product. Incubator: GrowthUP.
Budgy was recognized as Ukrainian design the very best of (2013) and received FWA Mobile Of The Day (MOTD) Award in 2014.
[dt_divider style=”thick” /]Fluger
We couldn’t miss this startup, though it’s on private alpha stage. The reason is the idea is really cool! We’re eager to try the app already.
For Millennials, experience is everything. They are always looking for something new. And now they are waiting for a service that could provide personalized travel recommendations based on their budget and personality. But there is no easy way to a music event, plan and book a trip that would be perfect for you. That’s why the team decided to to make Fluger — your personal intuitive travel assistant.
For music minded voyagers and #EasyJetSetters who want to get full of music events vocation, Fluger will help to find ideas for travel and solve all organization details of the upcoming trip easily and super fast. The startup aims to build a place where music-minded voyagers can come to find new ideas for travel based on their music taste and book everything they need for the journey.
The MVP is quite a simple chat bot, that lets you search for music events in any city. To make it useful for tourists, the team is working on more options like renting a place to stay, booking tickets and searching for the flights.
Anyways, we’re looking forward to the news from the guys!
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These were five Ukrainian travel startups with different specifics: deals & discounts, events booking, relocation, budgeting and music. We tried to hand pick such a list to show that each industry and vertical has so many ways to grow and develop, and even a popular touristic category combined with an alternate area can fill the market niche or even build its own audience!
Needless to say, that we’re always opened for communication and will be glad to get your suggestions on other interesting Ukrainian travel startups. Feel free to ping us at team@dna325.com.
Author: Julia Kravchuk
