ZOZI Acquires TripFlavor, Launches ZOZI Advance™, Real-Time Bookings, Scheduling, Customer Management Platform for Activity Merchants
San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) August 07, 2013 -- For more information: http://www.zozi.com/advance
ZOZI, the leading brand helping people live active lifestyles, today announced the acquisition of real-time tours and activities Software as a Service reservation system, TripFlavor, along with the launch of ZOZI Advance™, a real-time booking, scheduling, payments, and customer relationship management SaaS platform for activity merchants. This announcement is the latest in a string of significant milestones for the company related to the development of a full end-to-end active lifestyle platform designed with three core pillars: inspiration, commerce, and technology.
The ZOZI Guru® team (the inspiration component) is made up of 13 activity category leading celebrities led by global phenomenon Bear Grylls, host of NBC’s new summer hit show: “Get Out Alive with Bear Grylls.” The ZOZI Gurus inspire people to Get Out There™ and connect with ZOZI's local experiences, getaways, and gear (the commerce component). Finally, and announced today, the ZOZI Advance platform (the technology component), provides real-time bookings, scheduling, payments and customer management for activity merchants.
“The TripFlavor acquisition, successful integration, and launch of ZOZI Advance marks an important milestone for the company,” said TJ Sassani, CEO, ZOZI. “The TripFlavor team built an incredible technology platform that solved specific problems for both our customers and merchants. For our customers: ZOZI Advance will soon enable real-time bookings across thousands of activities in the US and Canada – and soon globally. For our merchants: it enables real-time bookings, scheduling, payments, and customer management for their entire business. ZOZI Advance is unique for activity merchants because it’s the first platform to also bring substantial, high-quality new customer flow to the merchant via a branded channel, ZOZI.com.”
TripFlavor launched in 2011 as an OpenTable-style platform for activities and tours and was started by CEO and co-founder Sam Edelson, an early Airbnb employee, and Gene Drabkin, CTO and co-founder, a former Ning engineer. Tripflavor’s team expanded the technology platform to serve a large number of activity merchants across many activity categories. The two-year old startup raised a seed round of financing in late 2011 from prominent angel investors and entrepreneurs including Nathan Blecharczyk (co-founder & CTO of Airbnb); Mark Leslie (founder, chairman and CEO of Veritas Software); and Ken Keller (co-founder of IGN Entertainment).
“We’re thrilled to be joining forces with ZOZI,” said Sam Edelson, CEO and co-founder, TripFlavor. “The technology that our team worked so hard to build, combined with ZOZI’s strong brand, merchant network, ZOZI Gurus, and passionate customers, creates a much needed solution in an industry that is poised for disruption. The large activities market has long been underserved because most companies lack several pieces to the puzzle. After meeting with many potential strategic partners, it was clear that ZOZI had all the pieces in place and we wanted our technology to be part of the platform that will ultimately power the active lifestyle market.”
About ZOZI®
ZOZI inspires people to live active lifestyles by connecting them with local experiences, getaways, and the gear they need to Get Out There™. On ZOZI, you can discover and book unforgettable experiences that are around the corner or around the world and find the Gear you need for your next adventure. Each experience featured on the site is curated by a team of in-house experts; such as full-moon kayaking, vineyard touring by bike, surfing and relaxing in a private coastal villa, or even once in a lifetime experiences with category leading celebrities, (ZOZI Gurus®) such as snowboarding the Jackson Hole backcountry with three-time X-Games Gold Medalist and Creator of Art of Flight, Travis Rice. The ZOZI Guru® team are 13 category leading celebrities led by global phenomenon Bear Grylls, host of NBC’s new summer hit show: “Get Out Alive with Bear Grylls.” ZOZI makes it easy to discover experiences in dozens of cities across the US and Canada or book getaways across all seven continents. ZOZI Advance™ provides a real-time booking, scheduling, payments, and customer relationship management Saas platform for activity merchants. ZOZI is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in New York City and Vancouver, Canada. For more information, visit: http://www.zozi.com/info
Contact:
Tian Lee
Public Relations Manager, ZOZI // tian.lee(at)zozi(dot)com
Tian Lee, ZOZI PR Manager, http://www.zozi.com/info, (323) 605-9160, [email protected]
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