In November last year, I was among a crowd of fellow entrepreneurs and early-stage investors to be impressed by the pitching skills of Travellr’s Ian Cumming at Pitch Club‘s second ever Hobart event.
Of course, Cumming went on to win the evening, for eloquently describing his ‘crowd-sourcing’ travel search engine and his commercial plans for the product.
Later, as the night progressed, perhaps after a second or third round of cocktails (all the pubs were closed), Cummings shared his views that raising capital is a time consuming process and that, in particular, he would be seeking a strategic partner.
That’s why I was particularly pleased to receive news a few days ago that Travellr has secured growth capital from none other than the travel insurance and travel services company The World Normads Group.
According to Stewart Hindmarsh, World Nomads Group CEO, in a media statement, “Our investment in Travellr.com represents an ongoing commitment to innovative technologies and presents a great opportunity to work more closely with our partners by enabling them to deeply connect with the travel community.”
No doubt, this strategic partner sees genuine ongoing value in the application of Travellr’s services as part of its own online evolution.
Put simply, Travellr.com was developed to help travellers find the most helpful and relevant travel knowledge about anywhere in the world by allowing these same people to share travel knowledge in the form of user generated questions and answers. Who better to share insight on travel than travellers, right?
In addition to Pitch Club fame, Travellr.com has won a number of awards, including the CeBIT Webciety Wildcard, and has been featured in the Google Geo Developers blog.
Of course, this development ties in neatly with previous posts on the topic.
Perhaps the next time you consider raising capital, don’t pursue the obvious targets. Stop to consider which organisations would gain the most ’strategic value’ from being an investor in your company – who can make the most money from what you have to offer?
By applying those principles, it seems fair to say that Travellr didn’t need to look too far to find its own travelling companion in this crazy journey called business.
