After a down year, funding for travel startups has increased in the first quarter of 2024, even as the number of actual rounds is down.
Phocuswright’s Travel Startups Interactive Database put the funding that went into new entrants in the first three months of the year at around $1 billion, a big step up from 2023’s first quarter figure of around $420 million.
Significant rounds went into mobility companies such as ride-hailing company InDrive, $150 million, and in Nigeria-founded Moove, a company providing finance to purchase vehicles, which received $100 million in Series B. Meanwhile, Heart Aerospace landed $108 million to help develop its hybrid-electric plane and Cosmic Aerospace announced a seed round of $4.5 million.
In micromobility, Voi attracted a further $25 million for its e-bike and e-scooter operations, although other companies in the space, including Bird, which entered Chapter 11, did not fare so well.
Another area that continued…