LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Elude, the travel disruptor reinventing the booking experience, announced their Seed Round today, raising $3M from both new and existing investors. Founded by serial travelers, Alex Simon and Frankie Scerbo, CEO and CMO respectively, Elude is the only travel app allowing customers to book flights and hotels all in line with users’ budgets. In addition to announcing their seed round, Elude is releasing new features, such as a “featured trips” section, an expanded list of destinations, and other key alterations improving the user experience.
Today, Americans visit 140 websites on average in the weeks leading to booking a trip. Elude views this as visiting 139 websites too many and developed several of their new features specifically to address this problem directly. The newly debuted “featured trips” tool will show up on a user’s app and allow them to book a trip in one click. This makes Elude the fastest travel booking experience on the market, offering people the ability to buy travel with the same ease they can buy concert tickets, groceries and nearly anything else online. Travelers are now able to explore every potential trip without having to spend hours combing through different websites and apps.
“We are thrilled to be working with ATX at this stage in Elude’s journey,” said Simon. “ATX brings a wealth of experience and knowledge about transforming innovative companies into household names. Chris and the rest of the ATX team understand our vision and our consumers' pain points. The endless options cause customers to feel overwhelmed, and we’re here to simplify the experience.”
ATX Venture Partners, an Austin-based firm known for investing early in companies they see as primed to disrupt large and stagnant markets, led the round. While travel was one of the first industries to succeed on the internet, the booking process has remained unchanged over the past decade. Additional investors include Mucker Capital, Unicorn Ventures, Upfront Scout Fund, StartupO, Grayson Capital, Gaingels, Maccabee Ventures and Flight VC. This brings Elude’s total funding to over $5M to date, showcasing that travel technology is ripe for modernization, as the industry resurfaces.
“The travel space took a heavy blow at the beginning of the pandemic, and now we’re seeing the industry reemerge in the form of a travel rebound,” said Chris Shonk, Co-Founding Partner at ATX Venture Partners. “What Elude created through an experiential, budget-first, and mobile approach to travel resonates with the current market. Alex and Frankie successfully developed a way to embed the functionality of travel agents and bring it to the everyday traveler without the costs and hassles associated with other third-party services.”
Travel agents were largely phased out by the internet, as people wanted more control over their booking options. Yet, consumers were quickly faced with an abundance of choices, which led to greater inefficiencies. Elude was launched in August 2021 with a solution to this friction and their mission is to change the way people book, discover, and evaluate their travel options. On Elude, users input their budget and departing location and, within a few thumb taps, can book their flight and hotel within the price range they provided.
“The customer experience is always at the forefront of our new developments,” said Scerbo. “Booking a vacation should be as relaxing and enjoyable as the vacation itself. We also want to encourage more spontaneity and excitement around the travel booking process. We are excited to finally roll out the “featured trips,” allowing users to access the best destination packages in real-time to newfound destinations they may have not considered before.”
Since launching, Elude gained over 20,000 users exploring the easy-to-navigate search engine between two and three thousand times a day. The average trip budget is between $1,200 and $1,750.
About Elude: Elude is the only travel discovery and booking platform that allows anyone to plan trips in line with their budget -- instead of location or price. Elude’s key feature is a budget-first travel search engine that offers access and book global flights and accommodations. Elude’s fully customizable onboarding experience offers curated trip packages and future trip suggestions based on customers’ preferences and interests. By disrupting the traditional travel booking model, Elude is building a community of explorers, allowing anyone to experience the transformative powers of travel more often.
The Elude app is now easily available for iPhone or Web (desktop & all mobile platforms) at http://elude.co/
