Investment will enable the travel tech start-up to further expand its global footprint and enable more hotels to offer incredible in-destination activities to their guests.
18 September 2024 – London, UK – Turneo, a leading travel tech start-up focused on experiential hospitality, today announced the successful closing of a €2m seed investment round led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from Underline Ventures.
The investment will accelerate Turneo’s mission to revolutionise hospitality by enabling the world’s leading hotels to offer incredible in-destination activities to their guests. In addition to growing the team, the funding will enable expansion into new markets and significant product enhancements.
Founded in 2022, Turneo enables hotels to manage their entire activities offering in one place. It allows hotel guests to browse and book in-destination activities and transfers on the hotel website or app. At the same time, it provides hotels with a single platform where the entire offering of in-house and partner activities is managed. This includes creating and publishing new activities, partnering with local providers, as well as reviewing activities data, insights and reviews from their guests.
“Travellers plan and book activities before arriving at their destination”, said Fran Kauzlaric, co-founder of Turneo. “With Turneo, hotels can finally showcase their destinations and manage the activity offering to their guests. This means happier guests, with additional revenue and less operational hassle for hotels”.
Data they are seeing from the 2024 Europe summer season is fantastic: guests who booked activities gave hotels on average 8% higher ratings on review sites, and over two-thirds of guests who booked activities at hotels using the platform did so online. Recent years have seen significant growth in the experiences and hotel activities market which is projected to reach $463bn by 2030. Turneo predicts $172bn will flow through hotels.
“We are thrilled to have the support of such incredible investors as Bessemer Venture Partners and Underline Ventures,” said Matija Marijan, CEO and co-founder of Turneo. “This funding validates the huge opportunity as well as our vision, and it enables us to scale our operations, enhance our technology, and form critical partnerships so that we can empower more hotels to deliver amazing activities to their guests.”
Bessemer Venture Partners, a global leader in early-stage venture capital, recognised Turneo’s potential to disrupt the travel industry, following earlier investments in the likes of Shopify and Toast, as well as household names such as LinkedIn, Pinterest and Skype. Beyond just capital, their investment places Turneo at the forefront of the hospitality industry’s transformation, with the fund’s ability to leverage its expertise to guide the company towards becoming the industry leader.
“Historically, rooms were the main revenue driver for hotels. However, traveller preferences have changed dramatically over the last few years, and only selling rooms isn’t enough,” said Aditya Nidmarti, investor at Bessemer Venture Partners and newly appointed Board Director at Turneo. “Turneo is playing right into this market shift by building a platform for hotels to seamlessly create, manage and monetise rich experiences for guests – whether it is spa treatments or in-destination tours.”
“Turneo is uniquely positioned to transform how people experience travel and how hotels elevate destinations they operate in,” said Alex Ferrara, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, who previously led Shopify’s Series A round in 2010. “The company’s focus on destination management and the role hospitality companies have in it is exactly what the industry needs. We see Turneo’s potential to revolutionise in-destination experiences.” The VC fund, known for its pivotal role in Shopify’s growth, sees Turneo as the next major disruptor in the hospitality tech space, positioning the company to lead the vertical software revolution in experiential travel.
With this new capital injection, Turneo plans to expand its product offerings, grow its global user base, and establish strategic partnerships with visionary global hoteliers. The company, which was previously recognized as one of the Hot 25 Travel Start-Ups for 2024 by PhocusWire, will also invest in further developing its AI-driven platform to offer even more personalised and efficient travel experiences through hotels.
About Turneo
Turneo is the world’s leading hospitality platform that enables innovative hotels and resorts to offer incredible in-destination experiences to their guests. It was founded in 2022 by Matija Marijan, previously Senior Director of Strategy at Expedia, and Fran Kauzlaric, previously Innovation Lead at Brussels Airport.
About Bessemer Venture Partners
Bessemer Venture Partners helps entrepreneurs lay strong foundations to build and forge long-standing companies. With more than 145 IPOs and 300 portfolio companies in the enterprise, consumer and healthcare spaces, Bessemer supports founders and CEOs from their early days through every stage of growth. Bessemer’s global portfolio has included Pinterest, Shopify, Twilio, Yelp, LinkedIn, PagerDuty, DocuSign, Wix, Fiverr, and Toast and has more than $18 billion of assets under management. Bessemer has teams of investors and partners located in Tel Aviv, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, New York, London, Hong Kong, Boston, and Bangalore. Born from innovations in steel more than a century ago, Bessemer’s storied history has afforded its partners the opportunity to celebrate and scrutinise its best investment decisions (see Memos) and also learn from its mistakes (see Anti-Portfolio).
About Underline Ventures
Underline Ventures partners at the earliest stages with Eastern European founders building high-growth startups with global ambitions. It is the first solo general partner venture fund in Eastern Europe, with Bogdan Iordache at the helm of the $20 million fund. Backed by 30+ founders and early-stage operators from companies such as UiPath, Telerik, Green Horse Games, Bitdefender, FintechOS, MultiversX, MorphL, Smartbill, and many others, along with family offices and funds of funds.
