We Raised Series B Funding – To Build More Disruptive, Travel-Specific Fintech Solutions into WeTravel’s Platform

Years ago, while working in Central Asia and working with tour operators managing group trips, I dreamt of an intuitive and accessible booking management software that would alleviate the issues I was actively experiencing through endless emails, handwritten traveler documentation and reservation administration. Always fascinated by technology, I noticed the lack of digitization—from mailed traveler cheques to hand-written reservation details—in travel was complexifying the industry. 

When I packed my bags for U.C. Berkeley’s MBA program in California, I brought the dream to build a platform that revolutionizes how businesses interact and transact with stakeholders. As most founder stories begin—with personal experience and a lot of passion—I partnered with my co-founders, who I met in Silicon Valley, and pushed WeTravel (at the time as a booking software for student group users) to the furthest American corners. In a year, the platform accepted more than $600k USD in student payments – wow (we were onto something!). 

WeTravel's Founders (from left to right) Garib Mehdiyev, Johannes Koeppel, and Zaky Prabowo.

Traditionally, the travel industry, primarily because of its global scale in local communities, has been restricted in adapting many fintech solutions; technology-enhanced payment solutions are harder to scale globally, especially across borders and in local communities, without multiple intermediaries.

However, we knew there was a way—and a need—for integrated payment solutions—from installment payments to instant payouts and a peer-to-peer payment network—within our booking platform. So, we scaled our idea and our team and started simple: transacting through our platform. 

To extend our platform’s capabilities for users, in the past few years, we’ve innovated and integrated fintech solutions to absolve financial friction for travel businesses—that transact with travelers and stakeholders across borders and currencies, at high-priced volumes. We’ve also grown our team from a handful to more than 100 employees, who work from five continents, including two offices in Europe and The United States.

Part of WeTravel's Team during the 2021 company retreat

Now, in 2022, WeTravel’s platform will transact payments from half-a-million travelers for its thousands of users; by 2023, WeTravel forecasts to process $1 billion USD in payments through its platform. To support the demand for monetary transactions through our platform, we raised Series B funding led by Left Lane Capital and existing investors Swift Venture and Base10 Partners. The latest funding round will hasten multiple travel-specific fintech solutions—on the front-end for travelers and back-end for suppliers and business owners—to add to our mature software-as-a-service (SaaS) booking management suite and existing payment options.

With an extensive existing suite of travel-specific features, we will continue to adapt our agile fintech solutions, build-out innovative fintech features and functions, and prioritize growing our diverse team to handle the product’s evolution. What does this mean for our users? A better product for your travel business. 

As we expand our capabilities and functionalities, the entire process will better serve your travelers through an integrated and seamless journey that offers travel-specific options for booking and payments; it will help you more efficiently—and effectively—manage your trips and your business; and it’ll give you access to transact how and when you want, across the globe – in an instant. 

Johannes Koeppel, WeTravel's CEO

Of course, we have pre-planned fintech solutions that will push forward, but, as all innovative tech works, we’ll mainly listen to our users and to the world to adapt our new fintech features to meet your needs – at a constant evolution. As some of you know, we began recruiting for an Innovation Council, which will consist of our users providing real-time feedback on our product. We will continue to scale our team—as a globe, remote-friendly business—to build out our incredible software. We will continue to be the industry leader in providing you with a platform that works with you. 

To our valued and current users, we thank you for your on-going support. To those who are new to our platform, we welcome you and we are so glad you are here. This funding round will help us continue to do what we’ve always done: Build a platform that help grows your travel business.