Travel Note & Tour, developer of location based social travel service, Travel Note has announced its success in securing an investment of US $420k from Coolidge Corner Investment, specialist in venture capital for startups.
After launching June 2013, Travel Note & Tour went on to win the 2013 excellence award at the Tourism Creation Ideas Contest. For two consecutive years, the startup has also been chosen as the leading creator of tourism business by the Korean Tourism Agency. Through such successes, Travel Note has steadily increased its user base. The company now boasts over 310 thousand downloads with revisit rating over 91 per cent. In total there are more than 80 thousand travel contents and 400 thousand travel location image contents offered on the platform.
Over the last two years since starting, the company has successfully created a popular platform that provides users with useful information for travel planning. To further increase user convenience, strategic partnerships have been created with hotel booking companies, online travel agencies and tour package providers. These strategic alliances include:
- Expedia
- Hotels Combined
- Yanolja Pension - pension booking specialized service
- Jeju.com - focused on travel to Jeju Island
- Hana Tour
From September, it plans team up with MezzoMedia to launch travel related affiliate partner advertisements.
Lee Hyun Joo, the vice president at Coolidge Corner Investment who led this investment, explained that “One of the many advantages is the ability to provide UI and UX. From the users perspective, it creates a very easy to use platform for social travel service through maximisation of mobile use. One of the key factors influencing the investment decision was its fast speed". Through further co-operation with travel agencies, many more commercial models and revenue streams are expected in the near future.
