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7 Travel Startups Kickstarted by the UK Government

Matthew Parsons, Skift

July 7th, 2021 at 1:45 PM EDT

Private equity flooded the travel industry during the pandemic, but many startups looked to the government’s Innovate UK arm, which continues to put millions of pounds on the table.

The UK government has been dishing out millions of pounds to startups during the pandemic through a special agency called Innovate UK . The catch is that the startups need to fit into its “build back better” ethos to accelerate the nation’s recovery, with some sustainability thrown in for good measure.

There’s an eclectic mix of travel startups that have been competing for grants side-by-side with other sectors, mostly health technology firms, in different funding competitions.

Innovate UK, part of UK Research & Innovation , has been running since 2007, and to date has invested $3.5 billion in businesses, with match funding from the private sector taking the total value of projects to $6 billion. It claims to have helped 8,500 organisations create 70,000 jobs.

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Travel startups emerging from the pandemic cover a range of bases, from contactless valet parking and baggage handling, to electric boats and rail loyalty schemes. Here’s a selection of them…

Rail aggregator Byway ticks the right boxes as it wants to promote sustainable, flight-free holidays, with part of its mission to grow corporate travel bookings . It received $140,000 from Innovate UK’s $276 million Sustainable Innovation Fund that was set up in June 2020 to help startups keep their dreams alive .

Cat Jones, CEO of Byway. Picture: Byway

Byway has since received $240,000 from Innovate UK’s “Smart Grants” scheme — an allocation of $35 million set aside for the “best game-changing and commercially viable innovative or disruptive ideas.” On July 6, it said it had closed more than $1.6 million in funding, from Innovate UK and angel investors, including Rod Cuthbert, founder and CEO of Viator and Rome2Rio.

Innovate UK teamed up with the Department for Transport for a niche funding round called “First of a Kind,” with $12.4 million available to support rail innovation projects. The competition’s focus was how to make railways “cleaner, greener and more passenger-friendly.” A project called Rail+Club, developed by UrbanThings , took home a grant of $548,000 . Rail+Club is a connected loyalty platform designed to encourage customers back on to trains. Its technology tracks passenger engagement across the rail network, and enables a rewards and incentives program to enhance the experience and encourage the population back on to trains.

Innvoate UK also ran a scheme with Eureka GlobalStars Singapore . UK registered businesses could apply for a share of up to $1.4 million, as long as they collaborated with Singapore and other Eureka participating members. Abacas (Autonomous Baggage Automation for Changi Airport Stakeholders) won $482,000 for its self-driving vehicles .

Abacas is a partnership between Coventry-based RDM , Changi Airports Group and the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore . It said that with worldwide air passenger numbers estimated to double in the next 18 years, airports face the challenge of using existing buildings and infrastructure more efficiently to handle the increase, and the subsequent increased volumes of baggage. Its new vehicles would enable safer and more efficient baggage handling.

Baggage handlers also work in harsh conditions, from a health and safety perspective, it added, as they compete for space with fuellers, in-flight catering vehicles, tugs, engineering vehicles and aircraft.

Gigged.AI founders Rich Wilson and Craig Short. Picture: Gigged.AI

The pandemic led to a wave of startups tackling remote work and global mobility, but digital sourcing platform Gigged AI aims to help companies hire top talent faster. It secured $131,000 from the Sustainable Innovation Fund , and is developing algorithms to minimise the geographical bias to match relevant on-demand talent to specific work. It claims it can reduce the time to onboard employees by six weeks.

Limitless Virtual Tours

Limitless Virtual Tours won $64,000 in the “Business-led innovation in response to global disruption” funding competition . Limitless Travel is an agency that specializes in holidays for people with mobility restrictions and disabilities, and launched virtual tours for them during the lockdown. It said these tours also provide alternative income for tour guides in destinations impacted by travel restrictions. “From the competition award, we can start rapidly with feasibility discussions with tours, visitor attractions, potential consumers and trialling unattended test tours directly with selected guides,” it said.

Innovate UK handed $136,000 to ParkIT , a division of Holiday Extras , to develop and commercialize contactless valet parking at airports. With Covid-19 affecting airports, the startup said recovery of the airport industry will be built on passenger confidence. Traditionally valet parking involves a high level of contact between the operation and the passenger, but ParkIT has begun a six-month industrial-research project to remove the need for human interaction. “International airports are similarly reliant on parking revenues and this project represents an opportunity for ParkIT (and the UK) to lead the way in addressing this problem,” it said.

Voyager Marine

Voyager Marine won $140,000 to help it continue developing fully electric boats. The carbon-free vessels can operate for up to 14 hours a day without the need to plug in to recharge, and it will initially use them on a busy commuter route between Cornwall and Plymouth. “The design will focus on a clean hydrodynamically efficient hull form to maximise the use of the stored energy available, be of a design and construction that will allow it to be able to effectively operate in a congested maritime environment, with strong tidal conditions, rough seas and challenging berthing locations,” it said in its proposal .

What’s Next?

Hundreds of startups have benefited from Innovate UK, and the funding tap is still turned on thanks to another “Smart Grant” round totaling $35 million, for “game-changing and commercially viable research and development innovation that can significantly impact the UK economy.” Submissions are open until August 25 .

Meanwhile, Innovate UK has appointed a new CEO, Indro Mukerjee , who will move the agency from a grant funding body to an agency focused on driving economic growth by working with companies to enable and support innovation. There’s also more focus on unleashing private sector investment into research and development.

The UK government came under fire for its handling of coronavirus in the early stages of the crisis, and more recently for failing to support the travel industry . But looking further ahead, few could argue it’s not supporting a new generation of travel entrepreneurs.

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Tags: airports , changi airport , climate change , coronavirus , funding , loyalty , rail travel , rome2rio , singapore , sustainability , uk , UK government , viator , virtual reality

Photo credit: Hundreds of startups have benefited from Innovate UK. Jaanus Jagomagi / Unsplash

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World Tourism Day special: UK startups that are making a difference to the travel scene

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On this World Tourism Day, let’s celebrate startups that have given a fillip to the UK’s tourism by making travel hassle-free and affordable and encouraged Brits to embrace travelling within home turf.

We bring you an eclectic mix of travel startups that have emerged post the pandemic to cover a range of bases, from flight-free holidays, rental apartments for corporate workers in the hybrid era as well as keeping the carbon footprint to a minimum.

Founded: 2017

Founder names: Ben Stephenson and Charlie Cowley

Headquarters: London

Funding raised: $32.9M

Connecting hotels to businesses that want to sell hotel rooms and create new guest experiences, Impala takes away costly integrations and lengthy negotiation cycles for corporate travel companies and tour operators so that companies can focus on guest experiences.

“One thing that’s clear as the travel market starts to recover, and that’s proving difficult for hotels and room sellers, is that we can no longer rely on the typical predictable customer behaviours. Restriction anxiety, changes to holiday patterns, and remote working are some of the things that are driving shorter booking windows and changes in destination trends,” Ben Stephenson, Founder, Impala said.

In this unpredictable world, properties need to be able to adapt their distribution strategy quickly – and room sellers are looking for supply that gives customers what they want. “That’s why the startup created Contracting by Impala, to dramatically simplify and accelerate the process of signing new agreements and getting properties on sale. With Contracting by Impala, sellers and properties can request, manage and review contracts in one simple dashboard. Agreeing to new deals takes just a few short clicks, so you can get a property on sale in just days. And when it comes to reviewing contracts, you can see all your existing agreements at a glance and easily agree to any changes,” he added.

Founded: 2018

Founder name: Alexa-Maria Rathbone Barker

Funding raised: £1M

The startup has unveiled a virtual family travel assistant and AI-driven travel platform to revolutionise the way families book holidays to help families book travel in the post-Covid world,

“As a travel startup during Covid, we knew we needed to pivot our approach from selling holiday accommodation, to supporting parents in our community over these trying times. To do this, during the pandemic, we created virtual activity pack resources aimed at primary school children. These were designed to keep children occupied over the long lockdown days and to help children dream of a world beyond their four walls. Thousands of children all around the UK downloaded these resources and the feedback from parents was phenomenal,” said Alexa-Maria Rathbone Barker, CEO and Founder, tripAbrood .

As the lockdowns eased and travel picked up, the company soft launched into the UK market and quickly had customers staying on a daily basis in tripAbrood properties initially in the UK and then as markets opened up, abroad as well.

“We had so much positive feedback on our lockdown country activity packs, that we decided to make this a core part of our brand going forward, developing ‘Arrive Like A Local’ activity packs for booked destinations, helping children to explore the destinations they are visiting and arrive like a local. These resources are free to everyone who books on the platform and we’ve had children visiting places like York and becoming mini historians in their own rights! We can’t wait to help more families all over the UK to start travelling again and to experience culture as a whole family,” she added.

Founded: 2020

Founder: Cat Jones

Funding raised: £1.1M

Building a new type of holiday focussed on slowing down the journey, personalising the experience and keeping the carbon footprint to a minimum, the ‘world-first’ flight-free holiday platform brings sustainable leisure travel to the mainstream.

“ This has certainly been the summer of slow travel! We sent six times more people on slow holidays in September than when lockdown lifted in April and have added seven new team members (we still have three open roles). Our dynamic packaging technology now allows us to automatically plan and book multi-stop train/boat/bus trips around customer preferences across the UK, and with European trips booming again, we’ve recently added cross-channel ferry connections as a Eurostar alternative for those travelling with pets. Our brand-new internal editor allows our customer experience team to interact with our tech to fully customise trips based on their WhatsApp/phone/email conversations with customers,” said Cat Jones, founder, Byway.

Love Home Swap

Founded: 2011

Founder: Debbie Wosskow

Now owned by Travel + Leisure Co, as US-listed business who bought the startup in 2017, the award-winning, members-only global home swapping platform, Love Home Swap allows travellers to explore the world through the power of sharing. From city pads to chateaux, the site features thousands of stunning homes in 100 countries worldwide. Founded in the UK in 2011, it was inspired by the movie ‘The Holiday’. Helping members swap properties for 10 years, the service offers authentic, original and unique holiday accommodation for travel-lovers looking for somewhere to truly write home about.

“Travelling in the current climate obviously comes with its own unique challenges but at Love Home Swap we’ve put a few measures in place to make it easier and safer for our members to swap their homes. At the very beginning of the pandemic, we offered our community the chance to freeze their memberships, so that they could start travelling again when they felt confident to do so. We also offered new members a ‘Swap Guarantee’ in which they had a second year of membership for free if they didn’t manage to arrange a home swap in their first year with us. Quite simply, we want everyone to share our opinion that home swapping is the most cost-effective and desirable way to travel,” said Célia Pronto, Managing Director, Love Home Swap .

As the world continues to reopen, the company has been delighted to see so many conversations between its members, with many of them planning staycations for this year, and long-distance travel for next year. “We’re playing our part in ensuring Covid-safe travel by encouraging our members to meet our enhanced cleaning guidelines, and we’re making it easier than ever for our community to arrange home swaps,” she added.

The startup has also enhanced its ‘Response Rates’ so that members know how quickly someone is likely to agree to their swap request, alongside introducing a new online folder system – so that home swappers can easily keep track of the messages they’re sending and receiving – and they have gifted new members with some free Points (which is its virtual currency) to encourage them to plan a break.

Founder names: Vivi Cahyadi Himmel (CEO) and Karolina Saviova (COO)

The flexible furnished housing specialist delivers cloud-based and duty of care compliant accommodation, including private and serviced apartments, villas and homes worldwide.

“Softwares that streamline guest experience and operations have become extremely key this year (during pandemic) to address not only health, safety and security heightened standards but also labour shortages. The innovations which include smart locks, automated guest screening, smart thermostats, noise monitoring, housekeeping and maintenance, allow hospitality sectors to operate more efficiently and enable their staff to deliver higher value of work, truly eliminating any manual work,” said Vivi Cahyadi Himmel, CEO and Co-Founder, AltoVita.

Founded: 2014

Founder names: Raj Patel and Elena Lopez

Funding raised: £450K

The London-based travel tech startup offers affordable, self-catered, city centre stays over the summer months by making use of vacant high-end student accommodation.

“Post Covid, we can see strong demand from families and other groups for good quality multiple bedroom apartments in city centre locations and we’ve partnered with high-end student accommodation operators, whose rooms are often vacant during the peak summer period, to let rooms out to tourists. Flat sizes go up to 8 bed flats – all en-suite – so very rare to find anywhere else,” said Raj Patel, Founder, Zeni.

Founded: 2019

Founder names: Jay Olenicz, Henry Popiolek, Dustin Silk

Funding raised: £0.5M

The last-minute booking app for staycations in the UK is sort of like a mix between Airbnb and Lastminute.com.

“As COVID and lockdown restrictions end, Staze will be focusing on reducing the environmental impact of travel across business. We’ll do this by not just offsetting any carbon impact but by being net negative and positively impacting the environment per trip booked through our platform. The travel industry has historically had a negative impact on the environment and we are committed to reversing this,” said Jay Olenicz, Founder, Staze.

17 Travel Tech startups in the UK

Forward-thinking entrepreneurs are revolutionising the way people travel, using AI, developing sophisticated tech solutions and re-thinking the way we think about travelling and booking holidays. Here's a selection of innovative UK traveltech companies to watch in 2020.

Duffel is the most powerful and intuitive travel tech tools for starting a travel business. Duffel help businesses of every size to provide fantastic and smooth flight booking experiences to their customers. Their tools enable you to search, book and manage flights from across more than 18 airlines through one single platform. They help businesses of every size to provide fantastic flight booking experiences to their customers.

Onefinestay could be seen as the luxury Airbnb. The company opens doors to the finest homes in the most exceptional destinations and delivers unique experiences to both guests and homeowners around the world. Onefinestay launched in London in 2010 and became part of Accor in 2016. With each memorable stay, onefinestay delivers a level of personal service and professional hospitality that is truly ‘one of a kind’ in the private rental industry, and a gem in the travel tech sector.

Citymapper makes cities massively more manageable through its data-driven travel tech app. Headquartered in London, Citymapper is a small and humble team with backgrounds in transport, Google, startups, apps, design, investment and academia. They aim to solve everyday problems that can genuinely improve the quality of people’s lives and the way they navigate cities. They aim to make the complex simple, with an intuitive user experience, ability to analyse data carefully and have a commitment to understanding their users’ expectations.

Stasher has become the global sharing economy and travel tech platform for luggage storage with the simple understanding that people don’t want to drag their suitcases around a city when they just have a few hours before moving on. By working with an international network of hotels and retailers (indeed anywhere with some with extra space), travellers can find affordable and convenient storage for their luggage. Similar to hotel check-in, Stasher has partners like Premier Inn, Accor or Hotels.com and provides quick and easy storage worldwide. Stasher has won multiple awards and is one of London’s fastest-growing startups.

The Plum Guide started by creating the Plum Test, the world’s most intensive hospitality test to be sure that their listings are truly special. The Plum Guide, therefore, offers only the very best accommodation and positions itself as a pioneer in luxury travel and travel tech. If a home has passed the 150-point Plum Test, it means the property offers beautifully designed spaces, special amenities (fast WiFi, quality linens, fluffy towels, well-stocked kitchens), and that neighbours are well connected for exploring the city. Plum Guide offers the most exquisite city homes in London, Los Angeles, Milan, New York, Paris, Rome, Barcelona, Tel Aviv, Berlin, Copenhagen, Madrid and Lisbon.

Victor is an award-winning, one of a kind private jet charter service, that makes each and every journey unique and serves 40,000 destinations. Victor makes booking private jets easy, offering on-demand, in-app booking with no upfront costs and your own private flight concierge. With their ‘free to use, free to choose’ marketplace, clients have access to the widest range of private jets so that they can fly exactly when, where and how they want.

Founded by Arnaud Bertrand and Junjun Chen, HouseTrip.com went live in January 2010. Today, they are one of the world’s largest holiday rental travel tech sites. For the price of a small, low-budget hotel room, guests can instead have an entire house, apartment, castle, boat… They offer a selection of over 300,000 quality properties in thousands of destinations around the globe. HouseTrip’s concept is to get people to have an authentic taste of the neighbourhood, the city and country without the cost. Booking a holiday with HouseTrip means experiencing a destination like a local; trying local restaurants and seeing things that the average tourist would never see.

Have you seen The Holiday? This sums up nicely the simple concept behind  Love Home Swap . They help travellers enjoy their holidays through sharing. You choose where you want to go and the property you want to stay in, then ‘swap’ (directly with the owner or through a Swap Points system). Then you can just sit back and enjoy hassle-free holidays without the huge accommodation bill. With access to thousands of great quality properties around the world, there’s something to suit everyone’s taste and style… although meeting Jude Law is not guaranteed.

Founded in 2017, Travala.com offers 2,000,000+ hotels and accommodation covering 90,000+ destinations in 230 countries. The startup aims to be 15% cheaper than the rest of the market. When booking accommodation on the website travellers can pay using different cryptocurrencies in addition to credit/debit cards and they earn valuable rewards with each booking.

Zamna is a multi-award-winning software company building GDPR compliant identity platforms for the aviation industry. Zamna empowers airlines to verify a passenger’s identity prior to arriving at an airport thus positively impacting both the passenger experience and security. Recognised by airlines, technology experts and investors as playing an integral part in the future of identity management within airlines, Zamna addresses the challenges posed by ever-increasing numbers of airline passengers, privacy regulations, customer experience and security.

Founded in 2009 by Aaron Gowell and Will Phillipson in London, SilverRail delivers the digital infrastructure for the global rail industry. Their highly innovative product spans the full customer journey with an emphasis on user experience: journey planning, ground transportation services, inventory management, scheduling, pricing, booking, payment, ticketing, reporting and administration. Every year, more than 1 billion online rail searches are being made. SilverRail distributes tickets for more than 35 providers and carriers, processes more than 30 million bookings each year and serves more than 1,500 corporate customers worldwide. In June 2017, Expedia acquired a majority stake in SilverRail.

LuckyTrip is a travel inspiration app that lets travellers and explorers find a trip in one tap, by setting a budget and letting the button decide where to go. The smart app shows the cheapest flights from Skyscanner as well as the best places to stay from Booking.com. LuckyTrip selects unique things to do and enables the users to save their trips, share them with friends and book from their smartphone.

Zeelo is a personalised bus service on a mission to make shared transport a viable and safe alternative to travel by car. The startup focuses on the peri-urban mobility market (up to 100km) tackling the growing challenges associated with reliance on private car transportation. Zeelo calculated that every journey takes 30 cars off the road and does therefore offer a sustainable alternative to transport. Their valuable data allows them to serve routes that traditional operators can’t reach.

Seatfrog lets you upgrade to first-class for less. The company provide passengers on the go with a seamless experience to maximise ancillary revenue. Seatfrog is working with innovative partners from the travel industry to redefine and eliminate the painful extra and additional costs involved in travel today. Seatfrog delivers a unique revenue performance by using data science to upsell while delivering an  personalised customer experience and full automation from booking to departure.

Culture Trip is a global startup operating in travel, media and entertainment. The company creates stories that reveal what is special and unique about a place, its people and its culture. Their creative and editorial teams work with a global network of freelance creatives to tell location-specific stories with articles, videos, photography, illustrations and animations. Culture Trip wants to inspire people to plan their trips, go beyond their cultural boundaries and connect with the world around them.

NAVA creates immersive city experiences and has successfully launched across Europe, by combining accurate recommendations using machine learning, with a genuine storybook experience. By analysing behavioural and geospatial data at a granular level, NAVA helps locals and travellers unlock the city while providing businesses, chefs, designers and more, with an insight into who their customers are and why and when they’re visiting. Their vision is to reinvent the way consumers discover a city. To do so, NAVA creates immersive and personalised experiences which makes the digital and physical worlds meet halfway and develops real-time digital avatars around destinations, activities and behaviours.

Houst offers hosting and opens a world of opportunity. The company’s vision aims to give people more freedom anywhere in the world. In this era of opportunity, home can be more than just bricks, mortar, and a mortgage. People can host, and their home can earn that round-the-world trip, the time to pursue their passion, and the chance to start their own business. Houst will support maintenance, advise on pricing and help maximise occupancy, too. So far they’ve managed 250,000 bookings across five continents, and have been defining great, modern hosting since 2015. They now took over Hostmaker’s customers too since Hostmaker entered administration at the end of February 2020.

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Thrive is set up by Funding London, a venture capital company bridging the finance gap for early stage businesses based in London. With over a decade’s experience in supporting the startups of London through a variety of funding vehicles, Funding London sensed a need to illuminate the ever-evolving scenario of London’s early stage businesses.

Thrive features interviews with and opinion from budding entrepreneurs, investors and industry experts. A mix of contributors from all areas of the industry is desired in order to spark genuine discussion about ongoing critical issues. While it showcases the effectiveness of successful ventures, it also encourages sharing lessons learned from missteps and unsuccessful projects.

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5 Outdoor Travel Startups to Watch

5 Travel start-ups to watch.

Freedom Day may be put on hold for a little longer, but you call still plan an exciting staycation within the UK. Here are a few traveltech start-ups that should be on your radar. These startups, who aim to give you an adventure without leaving the UK, have seen huge growth over the last 12 months.

Eola helps it’s users find and book adventure sports online. This online platform offers a huge amount of offers. You can find anything from surfing activities to diving and horse-riding. With the ongoing surge in staycations, eola saw is client grow 5x over the last year.

Founder/s: Callum Hemsley

Founded: 2018

Most recent funding: In April, eola closed a funding round of €2.3 million which was lead by Pentech Ventures and Techstars. Eola will use the further funding to expand their technology, team and commercial footprint.

Much Better Adventures

Much Better Adventures offers small group adventure holidays for a quick weekend or longer. The online platfrom allows it’s users to join a social trip or go private. MBA is all about helping like-minded outdoorsy people on our scheduled adventure holidays or go private and split the bill with ease.

Founders: Alex Narracott

Founded: 2009

Most recent funding: In April 2021 MBA quickly surpassed its £800,000 crowd funding goal on Seedrs. The investments raised through their most recent fundraising round will go towards continuing the development of Much Better Adventures’ platform and products.

HouseTrip is one of Europe’s largest holiday rental booking websites. In 2016 this London-based holiday rentals firm was acquired by TripAdvisor in an undisclosed deal. Since HouseTrip was funded it has landed more than $60 million in funding.

Founders: Arnaud Bertrand

Founded: 2010

Citymapper uses data to help people better navigate cities. The app Instantly allows its users to compare their travel options in real-time for all urban mobility.

Founders: Azmat Yusuf

Founded: 2011

Most recent funding: Since Citymapper was founded it has raised £45m funding from VCs. Its most recent fundraising campaign on crowdcube, which had a target of £1 million, was oversubscribed; raising over 6 million in total.

Looking to plan a campervan adventure? Then maybe Camptoo can help! The online platfrom allows people to hire a privately owned campervan or motorhome.

Founders: Martijn Peeters and Roel Sadza

Founded: 2014

Recent funding: Camptoo’s most recent Seedrs campaign raised €500,000 bringing the total value of the company to roughly  €10.7 million.

Has the start-up ecosystem’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic had a positive impact on women?

Three things impact investors look for in venture.

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London accelerator programme extended to support tourism and business event startups through global pandemic

London & Partners

26 May 2020

London & Partners’ Business Growth Programme supports tourism and events industries at this time

Startups in London’s tourism and business event sectors are now being encouraged to apply to the London & Partners’ Business Growth Programme.

Launching in late June, the accelerator programme’s Summer Cohort will support companies in tourism and business events, creative, urban, life sciences, financial, business services and technology industries, as well as in the Impact (purpose-driven) sector as originally planned.

The decision to extend the Business Growth Programme is a direct response to the coronavirus crisis by London & Partners, as they look for more ways to support the tourism and events industries at this time.

As countries around the world respond to the pandemic, companies in the tourism and business event sectors have faced huge disruption as governments encourage people to avoid travel at this time.

Tracy Halliwell, Director of Tourism, Conventions and Major Events at London & Partners, said : “As London’s tourism and business event industries feel the immediate effects of coronavirus, we are doing everything we can to support businesses at this challenging time. I am pleased that the Business Growth Programme is now welcoming applications from these important sectors, providing guidance and opportunities to support these businesses on their path to recovery.”

Tourism and business event companies accepted onto the programme will benefit from a wide range of (virtual) resources and opportunities across the Business Growth Programme network – from focused sessions on cash flow, workforce planning and accessing support during the crisis, through to mentoring, sector-specific thought leadership and access to a dedicated business growth manager.

Maurizina Da Silva, Head of the Business Growth Programme at London & Partners, added: “Our Summer Cohort is set to be our biggest and most diverse yet. Small businesses have been particularly impacted by the coronavirus crisis, so we hope that by opening up the programme to include more sectors, we can help as many brilliant London businesses as possible navigate this challenging environment.”

The Business Growth Programme has supported a number of tourism and travel technology businesses in the past. Amongst these are Grapevine , a machine learning platform that provides personalised content to travel businesses, and Btrfly , a mobile app that offers digital airport lounge experiences and business networking opportunities to air travellers.

Cenk Gurz, Founder of Btrfly, commented : “The Business Growth Programme was an amazing experience. It gave Btrfly fantastic visibility and opened many doors for us – both in London, and internationally. As a recent graduate of the programme, I would strongly encourage startups to apply and really make the most of this fantastic support package”.

To be eligible for the free, three-month accelerator programme, businesses must have a UK-registered company, be based in London, have between 3-250 employees, a turnover of less than £40 million and a minimum viable product.

Eligible tourism and business events startups are invited to apply for a place on the Summer Cohort from today, before the deadline on 1 June, 11.59pm.

For more information and to apply, visit the Business Growth Programme website: https://business.london/business-growth-programme

Notes to editors

About London & Partners

London & Partners is London’s international trade, investment and promotion agency. Our purpose is to support the Mayor’s priorities by promoting London as the best city in the world in which to invest, work, study and visit. We do this by devising creative ways to promote London and to amplify the Mayor’s messages, priorities and campaigns. London & Partners is a not-for-profit public private partnership, funded by the Mayor of London and our network of commercial partners.

For more information, visit:  https://londonandpartners.com

About the Business Growth Programme

Part funded by the European Regional Development Fund ERDF), the Business Growth Programme is a free three-month accelerator programme that provides tailored advice, mentoring and workshops to ambitious SMEs looking to grow across London. Since it launched in 2017, the programme has supported over 500 London-based companies in the creative, urban, life sciences, business services and technology sectors.

The Business Growth Programme is also supported by its delivery partners. For a full list, visit: https://business.london/business-growth-programme/who-we-work-with/partners

For more information about the Business Growth Programme in general, visit: https://business.london/business-growth-programme

Jennifer Davies

London & Partners Media & PR Team

Tel: +44 (0)20 7234 5710

Tel: +44 (0)20 7234 5800

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10 Top Travel Startups to Watch in 2023

Are you looking for the latest advances in the travel sector? Explore the innovative solutions from the 10 hand-picked startups that we feature in this Travel Startups to Watch in 2023 article. They work on AI travel assistants, low-carbon travel, VR-based tourism, luggage protection, and much more!

Global Startup Heat Map highlights 10 Travel Startups to Watch in 2023

Through the Big Data & Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered StartUs Insights Discovery Platform , covering over 3 790 000+ startups & scaleups globally, we identified 3 845 Travel startups. The Global Startup Heat Map below highlights the 10 travel startups you should watch in 2023 as well as the geo-distribution of all 3 845 startups & scaleups we analyzed for this research. Based on the heat map, we see high startup activity in the US and India, followed by Europe. These 10 hand-picked startups work on solutions ranging from AI-powered travel assistants and carbon-compensated travel to luggage locker networks and location-sharing apps.

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• Tousifair – AI Travel Assistant
• Neolight.ai – AI-based Guest Management
• ExpeditionsPro – Virtual Reality (VR) Tour Platform
• Imvizar – Augmented Reality (AR) Tourism Platform
• SQUAKE – Carbon Compensated Travel
• Travel Neutral – Environmentally Conscious Travel
• Lugbee – Luggage Locker Network
• IONAGE – Unified Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Management
• Ok Away – Location Sharing Application
• ZIM Connections – eSIM Marketplace

Tousifair develops an AI Travel Assistant

Tourisfair is a german startup that makes Pandi , an AI-driven travel assistant. It matches travelers with tourism activities based on their expectations and constraints. The assistant filters out unavailable activities and also ensures the availability of all recommended activities for the trip duration. This eliminates the need for extensive research, saving time for travelers. Moreover, Pandi allows travelers to modify their plans, add or remove activities, and change their itinerary at any time. This way, Tourisfair connects travelers with personalized experiences tailored to their interests, budget, and schedule.

ExpeditionsPro offers a Virtual Reality (VR) Tour Platform

Australian startup ExpeditionsPro offers a VR tour maker platform. It allows travelers to access a large collection of pre-existing 360-degree photo and video content. The startup also enables users to create and share immersive VR tours using their own content or existing tours from the Google Expeditions platform. The platform is compatible with Google Cardboard, tablets, and PCs, making it accessible to users with low-spec hardware. With its easy-to-use, drag-and-drop interface, ExpeditionsPro’s platform enables users to create their own 360-degree tours and share them with travelers around the globe.

Imvizar provides an Augmented Reality (AR) Tourism Platform

Imvizar is an Irish startup that develops an AR tourism platform. It enables users to create, upload and stream AR experiences for cultural and tourism purposes. Travelers use the startup’s companion smartphone app to access a variety of AR experiences. This enhances their visits to attractions, towns, and cities around the world. Imvizar also utilizes 3D scanning, photogrammetry, and spatial audio to create realistic and immersive AR content. Further, the startup allows users to share their own AR experiences with other users. Thus, Imvizar provides a new way for users to learn about different cultures and explore new places.

SQUAKE enables Carbon Compensated Travel

German startup SQUAKE develops an application programming interface (API) plug-in for carbon-compensated travel. It provides accurate carbon calculations and compensations for various forms of travel and transport activities, such as flights, car rides, hotel stays, and more. Its representational state transfer (REST) API enables travel and transport companies to calculate and compensate for their carbon emissions according to national and international standards. This helps companies achieve their sustainability goals by offering sustainable travel alternatives like replacing fossil jet fuel with sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). The API also integrates precise carbon calculations and compensation into travel booking flows, offering customers green choices, and reducing environmental impact.

Neolight.ai delivers AI-based Guest Management

Croatian startup Neolight.ai offers an AI-based guest management platform. It enables hotel operators and travel agencies to collect and analyze guest preferences and behavior data. The platform also allows them to communicate with travelers via chatbots on instant messaging platforms. Further, it manages reservations, check-ins, check-outs, and housekeeping in a single dashboard. To provide travel recommendations, the platform leverages natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML). The platform offers an efficient solution for the travel and hospitality industries to ensure personalized experiences for their guests while optimizing operations and marketing efforts.

Travel Neutral empowers Environmentally Conscious Travel

Travel Neutral is a French startup that offers all-inclusive travel packages to minimize carbon emissions. It provides low-carbon vacations that are respectful of people, nature, and tradition. The startup does this by providing low-carbon transportation options, such as trains or electric vehicles (EVs), and eco-friendly accommodation choices, like solar-powered hotels or campsites. The startup also calculates and offsets the remaining carbon footprint of each trip by investing in verified environmental projects. This way, Travel Neutral allows travelers to discover new destinations without compromising on sustainability.

Lugbee builds a Luggage Locker Network

Indian startup Lugbee provides an online platform for travelers to find and book secure luggage locker options. It connects travelers with nearby cloakrooms that are available 24/7 and allows them to pay only for the hours they need. After storage, the startup seals the luggage with tamper-proof seals to ensure the safety of each bag. It also verifies and validates the stores that offer luggage storage, and offers 24/7 customer service. This way, Lugbee solves the problem of finding a reliable place to store luggage during travel excursions.

IONAGE provides Unified EV Charging Management

IONAGE is an Indian startup that offers a unified EV charging platform and charger networks. The startup’s app allows travelers to discover charging stations near them or along their route. It also enables them to plan their trip based on vehicle range and battery status. The platform enables them to charge their vehicles seamlessly with a unified payment system. Additionally, IONAGE has an intelligent trip planner that shows if an EV trip is possible with the range of the user’s vehicle. It provides details such as distance, time, cost, and battery status. IONAGE thus provides reliable and convenient access to charging infrastructure for travelers who use EVs.

OK Away makes a Location Sharing App

Australian startup Ok Away makes a location-sharing mobile app. It enables travelers to view each other’s mapped locations, addresses, local times, and phone battery levels on their devices. They also receive smart notifications for arrivals, departures, inactivity, and emergency events. Additionally, the startup promotes a missing pages initiative. It runs awareness campaigns for travelers missing worldwide using social media paid advertising. This way, OK Away enhances the safety and connectivity of travelers.

ZIM Connections builds an eSIM Marketplace

ZIM Connections is a UK-based startup that offers an eSIM marketplace for travelers who need a data connection when they arrive at a new destination. It allows users to choose from different providers, purchase a plan, and activate their new eSIM. Available in over 120 countries, it eliminates the hassle of swapping physical SIM cards and losing data coverage. Thus, ZIM Connections’ eSIM marketplace provides travelers with an easy and quick way to connect anywhere at any time.

Discover All Emerging Travel Startups

The travel startups showcased in this report are only a small sample of all startups we identified through our data-driven startup scouting approach. Download our free Travel Innovation Report for a broad overview of the industry or get in touch for quick & exhaustive research on the latest technologies & emerging solutions that will impact your company in 2023!

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16 Less-Known Travel and Tourism Startups Around the World

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Travelers are ready to get out and explore, according to a new report by the World Travel & Tourism Council . Venture capitalists recognize the opportunity – over the last ten years, they have fueled travel startups with $19 billion in funding.

We choose top disrupting travel and tourism startups to provide aspiring entrepreneurs with insights on what it takes to hit it big in the industry. Rather than including top-tier players like Tripadvisor 🌴, we aim to explore some lesser-known startup travel companies which are gaining market traction lately.

Check out our list of innovative tourism startups that make big waves now.

1. Touch Stay

Whether you have 5 properties or 500, Touch Stay digital guidebooks help you easily create and share property information to deliver the best guest experience. From practical accommodation information and inspirational content, to automated (and free!) SMS and email messaging, Touch Stay guidebooks give guests everything they need to know before, during and after their stay. Spend less time answering guest questions and focus on growing your short term rental business with Touch Stay.

Touch Stay was founded by Andy McNulty and Joe Jones – two serial travellers who kept on encountering the same issue over and over again: an absence of clear communication with their rental accommodation hosts.

2. Beyond Pricing

Beyond Pricing is a revenue management solution for short-term rental managers and owners to get, grow, and keep revenue, established by Ian McHenry and David Kelso in San Francisco in 2013.

The startup provides vacation rental owners with an automated AI-based pricing solution. The service analyzes market data in real-time and adjusts pricing recommendations to maximize revenue. Beyond Pricing claims their solution to increase revenue by up to 40%.

The company has raised $3.5 million in investments. They were funded by Plug and Play, Amicus Capital, Resolute Ventures, and Bullpen Capital, among the others.

• Beyond Pricing was included in Phocuswright’s 25 hottest startups list for 2019.
• The startup was covered by The Wall Street Journal, Time, CNN, Forbes, Bloomberg Businessweek, Mashable.

3.  Coindrum

Coindrum is converting foreign coins into duty-free vouchers.

A self-service machines provider founded by Lukas Decker in Dublin.

The startup offers a neat solution for those travelers who find themselves left with pockets full of basically useless coins after leaving the currency zone. They are offered to deposit foreign change into one of the Coindrum machines placed inside the airport area. In exchange, a tourist gets a voucher to spend in a duty-free zone. This also benefits duty-free retailers by making the non-spenders spend.

Coindrum received $2 million in funding. Among their investors were co-founders of Ryanair and Hostelworld.

• Coindrum won the 2018 top travel startups award.
• Last year, the startup was selected for the Retailtech Hub program in Munich to provide their machines to Germany’s key retailers.

4. Crowdvision

CrowdVision  is a leading automated pedestrian analytics and insights company.

A UK-based early-stage company founded by Fiona Strens and Anders Johansson in 2011.

Crowdvision provides an automated real-time computer vision technology that analyzes crowds at the airport using video cameras and machine learning. The solution allows to prevent bottlenecks and achieve smooth passenger flow throughout the terminal.

• In 2018, Crowdvision received an investment of an undisclosed amount from Amadeus Ventures. Prior to this, the startup was backed by Oaktree Capital, Plug and Play Tech Center, Angel CoFund, and Beacon Capital.
• Among the airports using Crowdvision technology are London Heathrow, London City, Stansted and Jersey airports, as well as Tokyo’s Narita and Chicago O’Hare airports.

5. Culture Trip

Culture Trip is your trusted shortcut to booking travel that’s good and makes you feel good.

One of the hottest travel startups geared towards those who are looking to dive deep into the local culture. The company was founded in 2011 by Kris Naudts in London. In subsequent years, they expanded their presence to New York and Tel Aviv and established a network of over 300 local authors across the globe.

Culture Trip is a hybrid of a magazine and a travel platform that delivers exclusive local content, recommendations, and overviews on culture and art. They aim to inspire travelers to explore the world through local cultures and creativity.

In 2016, the startup secured $20 million in funding from PPF Group. A further investment of $80 million boosted the company’s growth in 2018.

• Forbes named Culture Trip as one of the fastest-growing startups.
• In 2018, they were awarded by Red Herring Top 100 Europe, British Media Awards, the Sunday Times Fast Track Disrupters to Watch awards.
• This year, Culture Trip was named among the hottest startup travel companies by the Europas Awards.

Doerz is a real-life experience with the city locals.

The company is in business since 2016. Doerz was launched by Tomi M. Virtanen in Turku, Finland.

The startup was born from the idea of exploring the foreign city from the inside – by doing stuff and going places with the locals. Doerz is a social platform where verified local experience providers offer to share their daily real-life activities. You can find yourself ice-fishing on a forest lake, cooking pea soup in a Finnish student dorm, composing a song with a local musician – the list goes on.

• Currently, their ambassadors’ network covers 14 cities in Finland, Estonia, Germany, France, and Italy.
• Doerz has raised €127.448 on Seedrs.
• The startup is in partnership with Finnair and Viking Line.

7.  Evaneos

Evaneos is the leading online marketplace for tailor-made tours. Plan your trip with the expertise of a local travel agent in the destination.

Evaneos is a French tours and travels startup founded in 2009 by Eric La Bonnardière and Yvan Wibaux.

The startup has created the world’s first online platform aimed to connect tourists directly with local travel agents. Evaneos platform provides access to 1,300 local agencies and features 8,000+ ready-made, customizable itineraries to 160 destinations. The startup serves over 30,000 tourists across the globe.

• Evaneos has raised about $109 million in funding. Among the investors are Serena Capital and Fonds Ambition Numérique.
• Their solution has received positive reviews by National Geographic, Daily Mail, Wanderlust, TechCrunch, The Guardian, and other media.

Itinari is helping travelers tread off the beaten track.

A Brussels-based trip startup aimed to help people around the world discover and share some lesser-known local attractions. Italy-born entrepreneur Nicolas Casula founded the company in 2017.

Itinari is a media platform featuring exclusive travel articles that reveal some hidden gems across the globe. The contributors’ network covers more than 40 European countries. Here you can also find articles on some niche local activities like horseback riding in Kazakhstan or Parisian pet cemetery exploration.

The startup has raised €830k in funding.

Hopper’s innovative technology helps travelers save up to 40% every time they travel.

Take Skyscanner startup idea, add some advanced predictive analytics, and you’ll get Hopper. This cheap flights startup was co-founded by former Expedia engineers Frederick Lalonde and Joost Ouwerkerk in Montreal, Canada.

Hopper is a mobile app designed to automate travel-related prises monitoring. Its AI-driven algorithm processes million of prices daily and predicts how prices will change up to a year in advance. The user then gets a suggestion on when they should book a trip or wait, and when there will be the best time to make a purchase.

The startup has raised over $184 million and is valued at $780 million. Among their investors are Citi Ventures, Brightspark, OMERS Ventures, and Accomplice.

• As of today, Hopper app has exceeded 40 million installs, becoming one of the fastest-growing travel booking startups .
• In 2019, the startup was featured in the world’s most innovative companies list by Fast Company for the second year in a row.
• Hopper is the 2018 People’s Voice Webby Award They also won the 2016 Google Play Award in the category of Standout Startup.

Grabr is a monetize your free luggage space.

A San Francisco-based startup is on the market since 2015. The project was launched by Russian-born spouses Artem Fedyaev and Daria Rebenok.

The startup idea was to create an “Uber for international shopping”. As a result, they have developed an international peer-to-peer courier service linking shoppers and travelers.

On Grabr, you can drop a link to the desired item from Amazon or any other online store and get a delivery offer from a traveler heading to your destination. As a tourist, you can pick delivery requests at your destination and earn some money for delivering their items.

• In total, Grabr has raised about $14 million. The company was backed by SignalFire, Founders Fund, and Foundation Capital.
• The startup was recognized by the EyeforTravel’s Startup Awards .

11. LuggageHero

Luggage Hero is a luggage-storage startup co-founded by Jannik Lawaetz and Kristian Loekkegaard in Copenhagen (2016).

LH business model is as simple as can be – book online, then drop your suitcase at the nearest LuggageHero partner store in your destination. Today, their network of luggage storage locations covers 45 cities across the US and Europe, with more cities joining in 2022.

• The startup has secured $1.45 million in its 2019 funding round. Their investors include Nordic Eye, Danish Growth Fund, and Innovation Fund Denmark.
• LuggageHero was covered by the New York Times, Forbes, Evening Standard, Lonely Planet.

Panzly is the first flight insurance for delays or cancellations with automatic and immediate payouts.

Panzly is a young Ukraine-born travel insurance startup headquartered in London. The project was created by Ukrainian developers Alex Gayduk and Anton Nesterenko in 2018.

Plane cancelation is never fun, but Panzly founders have decided to make it less stressful. They developed the first flight insurance app with an immediate claim-free payout to the passengers whose plane has been canceled. The service triggers compensation automatically in the event of a two-hour delay.

• Panzly was featured in the 2019 top innovative travel startups by British Airlines, and 2019 top most promising new travel startups by Insurance post.
• They also entered the top 5 Disrupt Launchpad & Awards at 2019 Travel Technology Europe (London).

Questo turns city exploration into a game.

A Romanian travel app startup was established by Alex Govoreanu in 2017 in Bucharest.

Questo is an app that makes real-world city exploration even more fun by mixing traveling and casual gaming. It enables tourists to discover new places while solving augmented puzzles, quests and completing story missions. You can choose either outdoor urban quests or indoor quests in the local castles, museums, etc.

The game is available in 40 cities across Europe.

The startup has secured a seed round of funding from investors, bringing its valuation to $1.5 million.

14. Routehappy

Routehappy finding the comfiest flight.

RH is a NY-based flight booking startup founded by Robert Albert in 2011.

There’s more to a good flight than an affordable price and a convenient schedule. Legroom and a reclining seat, Wi-Fi, snacks and drinks, outlet access, and other small things make a big impact on your comfort during a flight.

Routehappy holds an exhaustive dataset of plane types, seat layouts, and other assessments for flights over the world. You can choose the most comfortable option according to your preferences or based on the overall “happiness points”.

15. SeeVoov

SeeVoov is the first interactive video trip planning platform.

An Israeli travel planning startup co-founded by Asaf Toker and Yosi Golan in 2016.

The startup has raised $400,000 in funding from investors.

• In 2019, SeeVoov was among the top 10 travel technology startups for the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) startup competition.
• The company won the ITB China 2019 Tourism Innovation Startup award.
• Their partners include Samsung, SmartAir, Israir, Pruvo.

16. TravelPerk

TravelPerk is the next-generation business travel platform pioneering the future of business travel.

An award-winning corporate travel startup designed to handle all the business trip management issues. The company was founded in 2015 by three experienced entrepreneurs – Avi Meir, Ron Levin, and Javier Suarez. They are headquartered in Barcelona.

TravelPerk has delivered a free tool that enables users to book and manage travel fast, within the corporate policy, and under budget.

• TravelPerk has gained €65.3 million in funding. The startup is backed by investors from Slack, Trello, Twitter, and Spark Capital.
• Among their partners are Lufthansa, Uber, TransferWise, Farfetch, etc.

🔔 Hire top PHP developers in Ukraine .

You may have noticed geographic diversity in our best tourism startups list. These flourishing travel tech startups represent 12 countries across the world. It looks like blurring international boundaries is at the very core of the tourism startups scene.

If you’re looking to join the travel startups 🦄 unicorn club with your own project, you may consider going offshore and offloading a part of web or mobile development of your project to remote developers. Contact us with your business-related question and our expert team would be happy to provide you with professional assistance on hiring the best tech talent and setting up a remote team in Ukraine.

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Tags: adventure , booking , destinations , experiences , hospitality .

IT Entrepreneur

Hello. I’m Julian from Bali, Indonesia. I have a concept/idea for rural tourism in Indonesia. Pandemic covid19 makes many small-medium enterprises, especially in the tourism sector, get a big impact. I’m looking for a team that can help us to develop our platform. I have 365 members (tourism players), and many rural spots for tourism (diving, surfing, agriculture, culture experience, etc). Also, I want to join the travel startups unicorn club. Thanks!

Hi Julian, Are you thinking to implement this idea in India?

We are young Egyptians we going to start up a new tourism service online. I would like to know how and the way to transfer our business from just a start up company to bring investors to invest in ?

Hello, thanks for the interesting write up. I’m not sure how often you update this blog but we’ve just launched another interesting travel planning and booking platform, http://www.travelplanbooker.com . We’d appreciate all the feedback you can about our site but in general our aim was to simplify travel planning and removing the time consuming process of booking on Silo travel websites. We like to think our platform is user-friendly, adaptable and best of all it enables customers to book transportation, accommodation as well as rental cars and attractions, from a variety of suppliers, all in one place. Please check it out

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What happened to London runaway horses that bolted through the city?

The runaway army horses tore through central london, prompting 'total mayhem' including crashing into a taxi and tourist bus..

Content warning: graphic photo

Two military horses seriously injured after running loose through London on Wednesday have been offered a home with a horse sanctuary.

The pair, who underwent operations, were described by defence minister James Cartlidge as being in a "relatively serious condition" and may not ever be well enough to return to active duty.

If they do not make a full recovery, The Horses Trust told The Independent that they would be welcomed into their sanctuary. The military has not made any comment on the offer, as yet.

On Wednesday, five army horses spooked during a military extended exercise sparked 'total mayhem' as they tore through central London pursued by police, smashing into cars, a taxi and a tourist bus.

The horses were spooked when building materials were dropped from height at a construction site right next to them in Belgravia during the routine exercise. Four soldiers were thrown off and five of the animals ran off.

Four of the animals who broke loose have now been named: Vida, Trojan, Quaker and Tennyson. Eyewitnesses reported seeing smashed-up vehicles and one of the horses covered in blood as the animals were chased through the city by police officers.

Vida was the grey horse seen in videos and images from Wednesday covered in blood galloping through central London, alongside black horse Quaker. In a statement on X, formerly Twitter, the army said one of those operated on had been taken to an equine hospital.

On Thursday, defence minister James Cartlidge told Sky News that three of the horses were fine but Vida and Quaker were still recovering: "Two of them are unfortunately in a relatively serious condition and obviously we will be monitoring that condition. They are in a serious condition, but as I understand, still alive.”

What happened?

The horses broke loose during an extended exercise with six soldiers in Belgravia, with four of the riders thrown off, after being spooked by building work in the area on Wednesday morning.

Three personnel from the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment incurred injuries which were not thought to be serious and received treatment in hospital. The fourth person who was injured in the incident is believed to be a cyclist and member of the public, the BBC reports.

Emergency were called early on Wednesday morning after reports of a rider coming a horse. Several horses were then spotted close to Buckingham Palace , with two of them being taken under control by police in Docklands following a dramatic pursuit. A drone team from the London Fire Brigade was used to help locate the animals.

Ambulance crews treated four people in three separate incidents in Buckingham Palace Road, Belgrave Square, and at the junction of Chancery Lane and Fleet Street, in the space of just 10 minutes.

The horses were all returned to Hyde Park barracks and were undergoing veterinary care, the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment later confirmed.

In a video statement posted on X later on Wednesday, Commanding Officer of the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment Matt Woodward said: “Every morning, the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment in London exercises some 150 horses in the parks and on the roads. This keeps them fit and helps inoculate them to city noise so they’re less easily panicked on parades.

“This morning, however, a small group of horses were spooked by some construction works on a quiet side road in Belgravia where building materials were dropped from height right next to them. The ensuing shock caused all horses to bolt and unseated some riders. Our immediate priority was the safety and wellbeing of our soldiers, members of the public and our horses.

An update following this morning’s incident with Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment horses in London. Three of our soldiers are being treated for non-life-threatening injuries. Our horses are also safe, and are undergoing veterinary care. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/ljJCF6NP7A — British Army 🇬🇧 (@BritishArmy) April 24, 2024

“We would like to express heartfelt gratitude for the swift responses of Met Police, City of London police, the Royal Mews, the London Ambulance Service, the London fire brigade and members of the public in reacting as quickly as they did. This enabled swift treatment of our soldiers and helped bring our injured horses to safety."

The commanding officer added: "Thankfully, considering the frequency of exercise and numbers of horses involved, this type of incident is extremely rare, we continue to strive to minimise the risk of this recurring. As ever, we are grateful for due consideration given by the members of the public to not making loud noises around our horses."

What witnesses said

During the horses' journey, they were spotted racing into cars, a taxi and a tourist bus, which was left with a smashed windscreen.

An employee for tour bus company Big Bus, named only as Mr Mahmood, said three horses got “out of control” from Buckingham Palace Road.

He said: “One of the horses bumped into a bus, then everything got out of control. I saw two horses without riders gallop away. One rider managed to calm his horse down. An ambulance went to assist another rider who had been injured.”

One of the horses was running through the streets covered in blood, which appears to be a likely injury from a collision with a vehicle.

Roland, a worker for tour bus company, Toot Bus, said the scene was “total mayhem”. “I saw horses come from the bus station in front of Victoria run around in a frenzy,” he said. “People were running around to avoid them – it was total mayhem.”

Meanwhile, a management consultant from south London who saw two of the horses galloping near Aldwych said the sight was “gruesome” and “like a weird dream”.

The 28-year-old, named only as Tula, told the PA news agency: “People were stopping in the street shocked. The horses were running into fast-moving traffic and seemed terrified. Some unmarked police cars were chasing after them, which didn’t seem to be helping.

“I felt shocked. It was pretty gruesome. Felt like a weird dream.”

Cab driver Sean told BBC Radio London that he saw three horses being pursued. "It sounded like a car crash, one was possibly injured. Maybe that is why there are only two being seen," he said.

"I pulled out of Buckingham Palace Road, one of the riders was on the road on his back being tended to. There was a Mercedes Vito parked outside the Grosvenor Hotel with its side smashed in and covered in blood.

"All the windows were smashed so I am guessing the white horse has hit that running into it."

Understanding why even highly trained horses can bolt (Telegraph)

Taxi driver describes moment military horse smashed into side of his Mercedes (Evening Standard)

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The London Eye Reality Show? Wheelhouse Signs Deal With Merlin to Develop Unscripted TV Based on Global Attractions

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• The London Eye Reality Show? Wheelhouse Signs Deal With Merlin to Develop Unscripted TV Based on Global Attractions 2 days ago

Could renowned attractions such as the London Eye or the Sea Life aquariums be getting their own TV shows?

That’s part of the plan following a new partnership between Brent Montgomery’s media company Wheelhouse and Merlin Entertainment.

Under the deal, announced Thursday, Wheelhouse and Merlin will develop “original entertainment” programs inspired by the various global attractions in Merlin’s portfolio, including The London Eye and Sea Life, plus Alton Towers, Chessington’s World of Adventures and Warwick Castle. The companies said the programs developed would “span a diverse range of genres, including reality, documentary and game show.”

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“Currently our guests have to come visit us in person to enjoy the immersiveness of our 140+ theme parks and attractions in 89 cities around the world, but our ambition is to amplify how we bring joy, create connections and make memories for even more than the 62 million guests who visited us in 2023, said Merlin CEO Scott O’Neil. “Through creative innovation and storytelling, our partnership with Wheelhouse will allow us to bring a new dimension to our stories, characters and IP on the largest platforms in the world: TV and entertainment programming. Wheelhouse understands and loves our brands as much as we do, and our partnership will help to create entertaining TV programmes that spotlight our diversity of experiences to iconic landmarks.”

Glenn Hugill (“Deal or No Deal,” “The Mole”), Wheelhouse chief content officer and president of the company’s U.K. division, will drive and oversee the Wheelhouse-Merlin slate.

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Bartlett Associate Professors’ Startup Raises £2.6m in Seed Funding

24 April 2024

Mollie Claypool and Gilles Retsin lead Automated Architecture, which facilitates modular, sustainable and robotically-manufactured homebuilding via distributed micro-factories. 

 Automated Architecture (AUAR) was founded in 2019 by Bartlett lecturers Mollie Claypool and Gilles Retsin with a vision of combining robotics and algorithmic design with a decentralised, low-energy approach to homebuilding. They have worked together for over a decade researching and teaching how robotics, generative design and AI could radically transform housing and the way we live.

AUAR partners with European and North American contractors and homebuilders, licensing robotic micro-factories to them to form a distributed manufacturing network that avoids the major capital expenditure usually associated with homebuilding. AUAR’s approach enables local ecosystems of communities, contractors, architects and developers to produce low-energy housing at scale, and their generative design algorithms can create and adapt a wide array of designs and configurations to local sites.

The new seed funding, totalling £2.6 million, will help add ten more partners to AUAR’s partner license network and enable them to expand their operations in the US. The funding is led by deep-tech and AI fund Miles Ahead, along with Robotics & Automation Ventures, Rival Holdings, Morgan Stanley, Vandenbussche Group, Bacchus Venture Capital, and angel investors Nicolas Bearelle, Atomico Scout Stefano Bernardi and Dob Todorov.

By 2030 the company aims to have 40 license partners for its micro-factories, with a capacity to produce more than 75,000 energy-efficient homes and remove millions of tons of CO2 each year. 

Commenting on the funding, Mollie Claypool said:

“ There is a huge and urgent need for affordable low-energy homes, but currently these are expensive to build. Building high-quality, sustainable timber homes is hard to scale, but robots and AI allow us to deliver high-quality housing at significantly lower costs, increasing margins and productivity while lowering the cost for the end users. AUAR’s solution incentivises construction companies to meet much-needed sustainability targets.”

Mollie Claypool is an Associate Professor at The Bartlett School of Architecture, founder and director of Automated Architecture Ltd, and Co-Director of AUAR Labs, one of The Bartlett’s research and teaching B-Pro Labs associated with the school’s Architectural Design MArch . She has taught at the school since 2015. She is Theory Coordinator for Architectural Design MArch and Managing Editor of Prospectives , an open-access journal published by B–Pro ( journal.b-pro.org ). 

Gilles Retsin is an Asssociate Professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture and Programme Director on Architectural Design MArch . He is Co-Director of AUAR Labs and director of Automated Architecture Ltd (AUAR). He runs the London-based architecture and design practice Gilles Retsin Architecture, working on projects internationally, and co-authored the book Robotic Building: Architecture in the Age of Automation (2018, Detail Verlag) with Mollie Claypool, Manuel Jimenez and Vicente Soler.

More information

• Visit Automated Architecture’s website
• Visit Mollie Claypool’s UCL profile
• Visit Gilles Retsin’s UCL profile
• Find out more about Architectural Design MArch and AUAR Labs

Images: AUAR Microfactory

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Wheelhouse And UK Theme Park Firm Merlin Entertainments Building Unscripted Slate Around London Eye And Other Iconic Attractions

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Wheelhouse is getting ready for a rollercoaster ride.

Brent Montgomery’s company has entered into a partnership with UK-based theme park and attractions firm Merlin Entertainments . This will see the pair working to develop a slate of original unscripted TV programs based around Merlin’s suite of attractions.

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These will be the basis for TV programs that will span several genres, including reality, documentary and game show.

Glenn Hugill, Wheelhouse’s Chief Content Officer and President of the company’s UK division, will oversee the Wheelhouse-Merlin slate.

Furthermore, the collaboration will integrate talent and digital strategies through Wheelhouse DNA, Wheelhouse’s creator-focused division, and talent-management arm Additive Creative. Strategic cross-promotion is expected to form another pillar of the partnership.

Montgomery, Wheelhouse CEO, said: “It’s a great privilege to develop a roster of new programming around Merlin’s world-famous and iconic attractions, and we’re eager to deploy Wheelhouse’s full arsenal of creative and business capabilities in this partnership. This is what we’ve built Wheelhouse to do, and with Merlin the possibilities are endless; we’re excited to get to work.”

Scott O’Neil, CEO of Merlin Entertainments added: “Through creative innovation and storytelling, our partnership with Wheelhouse will allow us to bring a new dimension to our stories, characters and IP on the largest platforms in the world: TV and entertainment programming. Wheelhouse understands and loves our brands as much as we do, and our partnership will help to create entertaining TV programmes that spotlight our diversity of experiences to iconic landmarks.”

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Launched in 2019, Startups of London has been creating high quality content for London’s startup ecosystem for over 3 years. With over 100 startup founders we have interviewed in video or podcast format, alongside over 350 deeply researched articles and guides we published so far, we aim to provide value for the people of London.

More recently, we have launched our job board which provides a curated selection of the best job opportunities from London’s top startups. Because we have featured most of the startups that are advertising open jobs, we have also conveniently linked all data we have on them where we can, on our company pages.

We are an ambitious team of 5 people who run Startups of London (which we call SOL in short!) mostly based in London, as well as a group of content writers from all around the world.

• If you are interested in a startup job; browse our open jobs.
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We love collaborating with ecosystem players such as investors, coworking spaces, accelerators. If you would like to get involved, feel free to get in touch with us, we reply all messages which are not spam. We also value any feedback you decide to give, either negative or positive, as a generous gift. If somethings on our site is not working, let us know.

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News | London

London travel news LIVE: Tube stations forced to shut as 24-hour strike hits the Underground

Several London Underground stations are closed due to workers striking while two Tube lines were halted because of a casualty on the track.

Transport for London said four stations were closed on the network at 3.50pm on Friday due to the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association action.

They are staging a fresh 24-hour strike in a dispute over terms and conditions from Friday and are banning overtime until May 5.

The union said the action was likely to cause Tube stations to close at the last minute, including into Saturday morning, but Transport for London said there will not be significant disruption.

Those closed are marked Pimlico, and Regents Park.

Aldgate, Caledonian Road, Bermondsey, Barbican, Temple, Vauxhall and Piccadilly Circus had also been closed but have now reopened.

Camden Town has reopened as well after a power failure.

There is, as of 8pm, a good service on all lines apart from the Northern which had minor delays.

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Live updates

Live coverage ends

Our live coverage of today’s travel developments is now ending.

Thank you for joining us, we will be back again with all the latest London travel news.

Tube station reopens

Tufnell Park Tube station has now reopened, TfL has said.

That leaves Pimlico and Regent’s Park still closed, alongside Kentish Town, which is closed for engineering works.

Severe delays on Northern Line

There are severe delays between Camden Town and Battersea due to an earlier fire alert at Brent Cross.

Three Central London Tube stations remain closed

Three central London Tube stations remain closed this evening due to strikes.

These are Pimlico, Regent’s Park and Tufnell Park.

Kentish Town remains closed for engineering works.

Chorleywood, which had earlier been closed, has since reopened.

Highgate station reopens

Highgate station has reopened, Transport for London has said.

It had been closed earlier on Friday.

Meanwhile, the previously reported delays on the Victoria line have cleared up.

Severe delays on the Victoria line

Transport for London is now reporting severe delays on the Victoria line.

A signal failure at Walthamstow Central has led to the issues on the stretch back to Seven Sisters.

Tufnell Park station closed

Tufnell Park station has been closed due to strike action by station staff.

Transport for London will look to reopen it later today.

Minor delays on Victoria Line

The Victoria Line is experiencing minor delays between Seven Sisters and Walthamstow Central due to a signal failure.

Severe weather may impact rail journeys this weekend

Trains running across Southern, Gatwick Express, Thameslink and Great Northern networks may be delayed this weekend due to severe weather, National Rail has warned.

Disruption is expected from Saturday evening until 12pm on Sunday.

Camden Town back open

Camden Town Tube station has reopened after being forced to close on Friday due to a power failure.

It means only four stations are now closed, including Kentish Town which is set to be out of action for some time due to works.

Former Apple researchers launch startup focused on protecting iOS devices

Two former Apple employees who worked for the company as cybersecurity researchers are now launching their own startup. Called DoubleYou , the startup is focused on helping creators of cybersecurity products protect iOS devices and Macs.

DoubleYou is a new security startup founded by former Apple researchers

The startup was founded by Patrick Wardle and Mikhail Sosonkin. Wardle worked at the US National Security Agency between 2006 and 2008 before becoming an independent security researcher specializing in macOS. Sosonkin, on the other hand, worked on Apple’s security team between 2019 and 2021.

They consider themselves “long time friends” with extensive knowledge of security on Apple platforms. In an interview with TechCrunch , the researchers said that the idea of founding DoubleYou came after they realized that there are few security products for macOS and iOS. In contrast, both platforms have become increasingly targeted by malicious hackers.

The DoubleYou team wants to use techniques frequently used by hackers to attack Apple systems to apply them as defense tools. The researchers say they’re developing a method for analyzing all macOS processes to detect and block any untrusted code, as well as monitoring and blocking anomalies in DNS traffic.

The startup’s founders also want to create tools to monitor and block software such as cryptocurrency miners and ransomware. “We don’t need to use new technology to make this work. What we need is to actually take the tools available and put them in the right place,” Sosonkin said.

Although the researchers want their startup to grow in the future, they plan to remain independent for now as they “just want to catch some malware.”

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Filipe Espósito is a Brazilian tech Journalist who started covering Apple news on iHelp BR with some exclusive scoops — including the reveal of the new Apple Watch Series 5 models in titanium and ceramic. He joined 9to5Mac to share even more tech news around the world.

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