Top 10 in Tech: London’s most valuable travel startups

Technology has opened up the world – and innovators have made the most of it, creating solutions that make travel simpler, cheaper, and much more comfortable.

For this week’s Top 10 in Tech – our weekly look at the leaders in London’s burgeoning startups scene – we’ve used Tech Nation’s Data Commons to investigate the startups changing how people holiday, explore, or travel for work.

It shows how much revenue is available for forward-thinking entrepreneurs – whether that’s through offering ways to make holidays more affordable without sacrificing quality, or finding ways to streamline the experience for the world’s most high-value travellers.

There’s also a fair amount of innovation aimed at helping leisure providers – including hotels and hostels – letting them reach and retain a wider audience.

Let’s have a look at the results.

Table of Contents

onefinestay

There are at least 10,000 high-quality rental homes available through onefinestay – whose platform opens up the doors to the world’s finest homes and villas.

They hand-pick each property, refining their list to about 10% of those that want to be listed, so travellers know they’re getting only the best.

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Founded: 2009
Value: £134 million (€148 million)

Citymapper

You’ll know Citymapper if you’ve travelled around many of the UK’s cities – and it’s available in locations from London to as far as Sydney.

The app makes travelling within cities as easy as possible, finding the quickest routes to travellers’ destinations using open data and modern payment systems.

Founded: 2011

Value: At least £131 million ($160 million)

HouseTrip

Now owned by TripAdvisor rentals, HouseTrip lets savvy searchers find great-value holiday rentals. They describe their offerings as the “ideal alternative to hotels”.

Founded: 2010
Value: At least £131 million ($160 million)

SilverRail

SilverRail knows the benefits of rail travel – sustainability, comfort, speed and affordability – so it’s committed to improving rail’s online customer experience.

Their modernising campaign hopes to unify all the diffuse systems currently in use, streamlining train travel to make more people enthusiastic about using it.

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Founded: 2009

Value: At least £131 million ($160 million)

Duffel

Duffel wants to totally redesign how we travel – but is remaining fairly private about just how. It’s backed by Y Combinator, and is producing “a new way to book travel online”.

Founded: 2011

Value: At least £70 million ($86 million)

Victor

You too can charter a private jet with Victor, should you have the finances. As well as providing top-class private planes for clients, they are committed to offsetting every flight they offer by 200% or more – and in 2018, 25% of their flights in Europe flew totally carbon neutral.

Founded: 2010

Value: At least £59 million ($72 million)

The Plum Guide

“The top 1% of homes in the world” are offered by The Plum Guide, an online provider of holiday rentals.

They’ve reviewed more than 400,000 homes and accepted just 6,000 – and are going through every possible option to select the very best for holidaymakers.

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Founded: 2015

Value: At least £56 million

Hostmaker

If you’re an Airbnb host, upkeep and property management can be difficult. Hostmaker’s end-to-end service helps hosts with more than 10 listings achieve up to 30% higher returns on their properties, offering an online service to help them keep track of their portfolio.

Founded: 2014

Value: At least $60 million