The coronavirus pandemic has claimed two up-and-coming travel startups: Priceline founder Jay Walker’s Upside and multi-city flight search tech provider Trip Ninja.
Upside was launched in 2015 by Walker and headed by CEO Scott Case, who was chief technology officer at Priceline from 1996 to 2000.
The service rewarded business travelers who make savings by being flexible with their travel.
The company sold a 25% stake to Flight Centre Travel Group in April 2019 and had raised $50 million in January 2017.
It says: “Unfortunately, lingering uncertainty about when and if business travel will return to pre-pandemic levels has made raising additional capital or finding an alternative path too unlikely at this point.
“As a company, we fought hard to the end and we decided to act now while we still have sufficient capital to conduct an orderly wind down of the business, take care of our employees and other obligations, and transition clients.”
Trip…