$5.6 Million Investment Boosts Travel Startup Mobile App

A new $5.6 million funding investment will help the Wanderu travel startup launch a native mobile app to help travelers book train and bus tickets on the go, TechCrunch.com reported.

The Boston-based company is competing against larger companies like Kayak.com, but has a new edge with the extra seed money from Metamorphic Ventures, Alta Ventures, Former Greyhound CEO Craig Lentzsch,500 Startups, Barbara Corcoran Venture Partners, John Balen, Brad Feld and other donors. A beta test of this service launched in the fall of 2013 after Alta Ventures gave it $2.45 million; te company since grew from 12 partners to 40.

TechCrunch explained how the service works: “Wanderu users come to the site, enter in their starting and end destinations, and the service offers you options on how to get there, taking a cut of the ticket sales booked via its portal,” and also reported that “the company is growing at 200 percent quarter-over-quarter in users and 400 percent quarter-over-quarter in sales since its public debut.”

CO Polina Raygorodskaya said Wanderu hopes the new mobile app will attract younger travelers — a growing market in bus travelers —  to pay for their trips through the new app.

“More than 80 percent of our users are under the age of 45 and we have seen incredible return rates,”Raygorodskaya told TechCrunch. “What’s most exciting is that we’ve seen our conversion rate double over the past four months, driven by strong return and repeat user rates, and our push to rapidly roll out new coverage and features that users are asking for.”