Founded by ex-Google and Roadster engineering leaders and serial entrepreneurs, the Bay Area company will disrupt travel planning in a way that ChatGPT alone can’t.
SAN FRANCISCO, September 08, 2023, (GLOBE NEWSWIRE): Mindtrip, a Generative AI-native company building a new way to plan and book trips, announced today that it closed a $7 million seed round led by Costanoa Ventures. Mindtrip is an all-new travel platform built on top of large language models to simplify the way travellers discover, plan, and book travel all in one place.
Travel and hospitality represent approximately 10% of the economy, and global travel continues to gain momentum, with certain regions even outperforming pre-pandemic levels. Pent-up demand coupled with shifts in consumer behaviour will continue to drive growth in travel. A study by Morning Consult found that more than half of GenZ adults in the U.S., despite age and income, are frequent travelers. They are often seeking new experiences, fueled by travel inspiration found on social media. New generations are prioritising travel and experiences compared to their predecessors.
“Watching the evolution of who is travelling and how they plan—from TikTok-inspired GenZers to Superbooker Moms to the Planner Adventurer—we saw an opportunity to create one place where people could combine the ability to discover, plan, and book,” said Andy Moss, co-founder and CEO of Mindtrip. “Where ChatGPT stops at text suggestions, Mindtrip incorporates photos, maps, pricing, and availability data that lets someone actually plan and book their complete travel itinerary leveraging generative AI.”
Trip planning is currently a series of disjointed self-serve transactions. Busy travellers are missing access to a more curated, discovery-based trip planning process that leads to more authentic travel experiences. They want to make quick and easy booking decisions without visiting 10 different websites and apps to plan a vacation. They also want to be able to share and learn from where their friends have travelled.
Built on top of the most current large language models (LLMs), Mindtrip allows travellers to ask literally any question in natural language that’s travel-related—whether asking about destinations, flights, hotels, restaurants, or tours—all in one place. Seamlessly discover new locations, plan, and book all aspects of travel, from flights and hotels to restaurants and experiences. Create and manage your entire itinerary. The platform is Gen AI-native, which means that the AI assistant is the foundation of the entire user experience, but the assistant is tightly integrated with accurate real-time travel data, including stunning photography, maps of new locations, and suggested places to visit.
Founded in 2023, Mindtrip is backed by an experienced team of seasoned tech leaders. Led by a rare 12 co-founders, its team includes serial entrepreneurs Andy Moss and Trey Matteson, Roadster co-founders who are on the heels of a successful exit to CDK Global in 2021. The team is joined by Garrick Toubassi, who previously led the Gmail engineering team at Google, where he was an early implementer of AI and applied LLMs at scale.
“We couldn’t imagine a better team to create an app to improve how every person we know makes their travel plans,” said Greg Sands, Managing Partner at Costanoa Ventures. “The team hit the ground running and has already created an impressive platform for partners and the customers they want to serve.”
Mindtrip will be in public beta before the end of 2023. For more information about Mindtrip, visit mindtrip.ai.
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