Travefy Raises $320K Seed Round, Releases New Expense Management Tool to Further Simplify Group Travel
Lincoln, NE (PRWEB) September 23, 2013 -- Travefy, a web-based planner that solves the coordination headaches of group travel, has raised a $320,000 seed round and released a new expense management tool.
Investors included Columbia University (Lang Fund), members of the Nebraska Angels, Company X, a subsidiary of Campus Evolution, and Nebraska Global among other angels.
Travefy remedies the challenges of group travel planning. Through Travefy, a user can invite friends to travel, poll dates and locations, collaborate on details, book hotels, and manage expenses.
“Group travel can be complicated and at times completely frustrating,” says David Chait, co-founder and CEO of Travefy. “With Travefy, we’ve built a solution that addresses the pain points of group travel on one simple and appealing platform.”
The beta version of Travefy’s expense management tool released this week allows trip participants to track and settle group expenses. Upon completion of a trip, Travefy will send all trip participants who owe money a simple balance for payment - those who are owed funds are then paid back in real time. This tool was built in partnership with SlidePay, and a mobile companion is due Fall 2013.
“Travefy is not only taking the pain out of coordinating group travel, but automating the tedious task of managing and settling travel-related expenses across your group,” said Joel Christner, co-founder & CTO of SlidePay. “This is a huge value-add.”
“The Columbia Lang Fund saw a unique opportunity to utilize digital networks to greatly simplify and enhance the experience of group travel,” said Entrepreneur in Residence, Professor Clifford Schorer.
The Seed funding will support the scaling and commercialization of Travefy’s group travel planning platform. This investment follows an earlier Angel investment from Linseed Capital in addition to a grant from the Nebraska Innovation Fund (Prototyping Program). Linseed Capital also participated in this round as a part of the Nebraska Angels.
“Travefy solves problems for both business and individual travelers. Business people can coordinate travel to save time and cost, and leisure travelers can both plan travel, and use the expense management tool to maintain their friendship,” said Jim and Karen Linder of Linseed Capital.
ABOUT TRAVEFY
Travefy (https://travefy.com) is a web-based travel planner that solves the coordination headaches of group travel. Through Travefy, a user can invite friends to travel, poll dates and locations, collaborate on details, book hotels, and manage expenses. Founded in 2012, Travefy is headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska and released a pilot in April 2013 followed by a full Beta product in August 2013. Travefy also offers a white-label B2B version for travel management providers.
Travefy has been featured in The New York Times, Skift, Network World, and Silicon Prairie News among other publications. In 2013 Travefy won the top prize at the Columbia Engineering Venture Capital Competition and the Columbia Business School Weil Business Pitch Competition, and was named a finalist for “New Startup of the Year” at the Silicon Prairie Awards among other honors.
For more information & press assets please see: https://travefy.com/press
ABOUT INVESTORS
Columbia University (Lang Fund): http://bit.ly/15gIs1U
Nebraska Angels: http://www.nebraskaangels.org/site/
Company X: http://www.company-x.com/
Linseed Capital: http://linseedcapital.com/
David Chait, Co-Founder & CEO, Travefy, https://travefy.com/, +1 (908) 930-9614, [email protected]
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