BELLEVUE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Gordian Software, a Seattle-based startup with an API that enables the travel industry to sell flight add-ons such as additional baggage and premium seat selection, has secured $25 million in Series A funding at a $200 million valuation. The funding was led by Accomplice and its sister firm Vinyl with participation from Kinnevik, DST Global Partners and Latitude, all of which offer significant experience in the travel industry encompassing investments in Airbnb, Hopper and TravelPerk.
Gordian, which works with some of the world’s largest travel sites and aggregators including Hopper, Priceline and Trip.com and supports upwards of 100 airlines, has raised $33 million to date and experienced 350% revenue growth in the past six months alone.
“Much of the airline industry is stuck in a technological time warp, working with outdated systems that don’t communicate with each other,” said Stephen Grabowski, CEO, Gordian Software. “The result is lost revenue for airlines and their partners and an unsatisfactory and overly-complicated experience for travelers who want to customize aspects of their flight. We are solving this problem by providing a simple, flexible platform for selecting and purchasing add-ons and, in doing so, are on track to capture this multi-billion-dollar market.”
Gordian’s financing will fuel the company’s growth in part through the introduction of new products that address the growing diversity and complexity of airline add-ons such as new types of insurance and fare protection, automatic check-in, health testing, etc. as well as expansion into new customer segments. Gordian is also looking to triple headcount by the end of 2022, fueled in part by its desirable work policy that combines seven weeks of remote work with one week of in-person collaboration.
“While many travel companies are trying to get back to pre-pandemic business volume, Gordian is operating at 15X its 2019 revenue,” said TJ Mahony, partner at Vinyl and new Gordian Software board member. “Personalization and rapid expansion of ancillaries within travel is inevitable and Gordian has quickly proven to be the solution for some of the largest travel brands in the world.”
According to industry analyst CarTrawler, in 2012, roughly 5% of all airline revenue came from upsell – now it is 15% and growing, with some airlines hitting 50% or more. What’s more, add-on purchases provide a robust margin to offset the roughly 5% loss airlines take on base ticket sales.
“Since integrating Gordian's airline seat map solution, we've been able to offer our customers a more seamless purchasing experience through our app,” said Dakota Smith, Chief Strategy Officer at Hopper. “We're thrilled to partner with Gordian as they offer best-in-class ancillary services, which has supported our rapid growth.”
About Gordian
Launched in 2017, Gordian Software takes the friction out of air travel by building APIs for travel websites, enabling them to sell airline add-ons such as seat selection and baggage. Some of the world’s most innovative travel companies, including Priceline and Hopper, use Gordian to serve their customers. Gordian is backed by Accomplice, Kinnevik, Y Combinator and other leading investors.
