Berlin-based travel startup Omio has raised a new $80m round of funding, with the money coming at a time when global travel and bookings are rebounding to record levels, following two years of Covid lockdowns and disruptions.
For the German unicorn, it represents the end of two years of pain and uncertainty.
“We will continue our global expansion now, but we will do it with discipline. We’ll go about it with humility and most importantly discipline, because we have a lot of scars from Covid,” Naren Shaam, Omio’s CEO and founder, tells Sifted.
The travel industry’s Covid crash
It’s safe to say that if you were going to choose to be in one industry over the last few years it wouldn’t be travel.
The global pandemic cut the travel industry to its core, with airlines, hotels and booking companies like Omio seeing revenues plunge to close to zero almost overnight.
Up until then, Omio had been on a roll. “It was a fundamentally different company…