Independent TravelTech platform Redzy announced yesterday that it had closed a $3 million round in funding, led by Bailador Technology Investments, that will be used to expand its operations into the United States.
This brings the total raised by Redzy since its launch in 2011 to $4.5 million.
Travel is by far one of the toughest nuts to crack in the startup space, particularly in Australia, and Redzy's B2B approach has positioned it to be one of the shining stars among a sea of other operators in the space struggling to stay afloat.
The platform, founded by Simon Lenoir and Hugo Sterin, is a B2B technology provider for tour and activity providers and travel agencies. It does not sell or resell its customers' products, instead providing a suite of tools for these types of businesses to do it. Redzy also has an open API, meaning that it is easy for its clients to integrate their internal applications and systems with the Redzy booking system.
Part of the reason why the company has experienced such commercial success and has grown rapidly in the last two years is due to the fact that Lenoir himself was a tour operator, previously managing a dive centre in Thailand. Redzy was designed to alleviate all the administrative frustrations he used to face just to keep up with his bookings.
Since its launch, the platform has been used to aggregate 28,000 tours across 73 countries. As part of the recent funding, David Kirk, captain for the New Zealand All Blacks in the 1987 Rugby World Cup and former CEO of Fairfax, will be appointed as Redzy chairman.
This is now Bailador's sixth investment in an Australian SaaS-based tech company.
“Bailador’s experience in the industry is unparalleled," says Lenoir. "With their support we are looking forward to building the world’s leading channel manager for tours and activities. In the last 12 months Rezdy has doubled its customer base and is now connecting more tour and activity providers to more distribution channels that anyone else in the travel industry.”
Right now 40 percent of Rezdy’s revenues are generated outside of Australia, the region where Rezdy was founded and has since established itself as market leader. Existing seed investors like Les Szekely's Grand Prix Capital are also excited about having Bailador join the Redzy family.
“We are very pleased to welcome Bailador to the Rezdy family," says Szekely. "With David Kirk as the new chairman of the board, Rezdy gains valuable insight from his experience, particularly as a director of SiteMinder, one of the first investments in Bailador’s fund. Bailador played a critical role in helping SiteMinder become a global leader in the accommodation industry.”
Redzy will be using these new funds to boost its growth in the United States and improve the platform for customers by adding more features.