Holidays can be hard to plan – if you’re not familiar with the place you’re going yet, how do you know what you’ll like? The Munich-based startup Fineway takes the guesswork out of travel planning with its AI-based conversational service, which allows users to make hyper-personalised travel plans within minutes.
Fineway’s purpose is to deliver perfectly tailored travel experiences to your inbox instantly, at no cost. To do this, the platform aggregates over 250 data points, including hard facts, deliberate and unconscious personal preferences, dislikes, room styles, travel intents, and more. And by using machine learning, the platform is constantly evolving and improving the options it offers to its users.
Founded in 2015, the Fineway has just increased its Series A round raised in early November with an additional €6 million, bringing the total round size to €13 million. Investors in the company include Axel Springer, Bayern Kapital and MairDumont Ventures. The startup currently employs 65 people, and is already generating seven-digits in revenue every month.
Markus Feigelbinder, co-founder and Managing Director of Fineway, explains: “The additional funds are intended to further extend our technological edge and are therefore fully integrated into the further development of our data science platform.”
Dr. Andreas Pfeifer, Chairman of the Advisory Board, said: “With the increase in voice assistants, we believe that smart conversations will dramatically change the way we plan and book travel in the future.”
With the new financing, Fineway is also strengthening its leadership team, hiring Michael Mattern as Chief Operating Officer, and Bastiaan Haghuis as the new VP of Growth & Marketing.
Michael Mattern was previously Chief Operating Officer of The Iconic (Global Fashion Group) Australia, and Bastiaan Haghuis comes from from Checkout.com in London, where he also worked as VP Growth & Marketing. Prior to that, he was responsible for its international expansion at Appear Here as Global Head of Growth.
By the way: If you’re interested to join a fast-growing startup like Fineway, make sure to check out the EU-Startups Job Board.