• BYHOURS

  Participated · Equity · Dec 2017

  ByHours is a Spanish internet company founded in March 2012 that provides online hotel bookings by the hour. The platform has aggregated over 300 hotels. Its core product enables users to reserve rooms in hourly increments rather than traditional overnight stays. Recently Velocity Ventures announced a strategic investment in the company. That investment is being used to support ByHours' expansion into emerging Asian markets. The article does not report any revenue, user counts, or detailed financial metrics. BYHOURS offers microstay hotel bookings in packs of three, six and 12 hours, allowing users to choose check-in and check-out times. The platform is available in more than 3,000 hotels worldwide and users can book in over 20 countries across 600 destinations. Founded in 2012 by Christian Rodríguez and Guillermo Gaspart, BYHOURS has over 250,000 users and has sold more than one million hotel hours. The company has generated over €20 million in turnover and international sales accounted for 52% of overall sales at the end of 2019. With new investment, BYHOURS plans to consolidate its presence in Europe, Latin America and Middle East flight-connection points, start operations in the United States, and develop the B2B market and connectivity with other tourism players. The company opened a Mexico office to centralise Latin America operations and expects to add over 2,000 hotels, increase turnover by over 150%, and earn 75% of revenue from international bookings. ByHours operates an online platform for booking hotel rooms by the hour, led by Christian Rodríguez and Guillermo Gaspart. The company runs in markets including Germany (office in Berlin) and Great Britain and allows reservations in cities such as Vienna, Rome, Brussels and Amsterdam. It has about 35 employees and reported €3.1 million of revenue in 2015, with a plan to reach €5 million in the referenced year. The freshly raised funds are intended to consolidate its presence across Europe, Latin America and southern Asia. ByHours has stated plans to expand into cities near international airports (examples cited include Doha and Dubai) and into Latin America, and it may seek additional capital to support openings in Asia or the United States. ByHours operates an online platform that enables customers to reserve hotel rooms by the hour. The service is active in Germany (with an office in Berlin), the UK and in cities such as Vienna, Rome, Brussels and Amsterdam. The company is headquartered in Barcelona and reported 25 employees at the time of the report. ByHours posted €3.1M revenue in 2015 and planned to reach €5M that year. Management changes noted Guillermo Gaspart Bueno assuming the chair while founder Christian Rodríguez remained CEO; investor representatives Roland Zeller (Redalpine), Sascha Hausmann (Howzat) and Ertan Can (HR Ventures) joined the board. The company planned a follow-on financing of €6–8M in early 2017 to support its internationalization efforts. ByHours is a Catalan startup offering a platform to reserve hotel rooms by the hour. The company is led and co‑founded by Christian Rodríguez Fornos and counts Guillermo Gaspar among its early participants. At the time of the report it had about 30 employees and roughly 30,000 recurring users of its application. The business is positioned as a reference project in the Spanish tech scene. Mediaset joined the company through an advertising‑for‑equity arrangement that will give ByHours prominent promotional presence on the broadcaster's TV channels.

• HAPPYCAR

  Participated · Equity · Oct 2016

  Happycar is a metasearch platform for car rentals that aggregates offers from around 1,000 international and local car rental companies. Users can search and compare prices and filter results by car type and insurance packages to find the best deal. The company operates across Germany, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy and Poland while targeting car rentals worldwide. Management says it is continuously working to improve the product to maximize customer satisfaction and to expand into new markets. Happycar recently raised €2.6M in a third funding round to support growth and product development. There has also been a leadership change: former CEO Alexander Wessels left and Robert Schütze, previously at Rocket Internet’s Zalando, is the new CEO. Happycar operates a metasearch engine for car rentals that lets users search and compare offers from over 250 international and local car rental companies. The service runs dedicated sites for Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Poland and the Netherlands while targeting car rentals worldwide. Users can filter results by price, car type, insurance packages, kilometer fees and one-way fees, and complete bookings via the platform. The company takes a commission on bookings and offers a user-friendly booking process plus a free customer service hotline. Happycar serves both business travelers (short airport/train rentals) and leisure travelers (week- or multi-week rentals). As of the latest round, the company has raised roughly $3.2 million since its 2013 founding.

• Distribusion Technologies

  Participated · Series A · Mar 2016

  Distribusion provides a technology platform that connects bus, rail, ferry and public transport providers to a global network of travel retailers via a standardisation API. The platform enables retailers like Google, Alipay and Booking.com to sell tickets from carriers such as Deutsche Bahn, SNCF, Trenitalia, National Express and Amtrak without individual contracts or bespoke technical work. Distribusion serves 2,000+ carriers and retailers and reaches millions of travellers across a presence in 70 markets, with the majority of its operations now outside Europe. Led by CEO Dr. Thomas Doering and headquartered in Berlin, the company focuses on simplifying ticket distribution for ground transportation. The company plans to use new funding to accelerate global expansion and to invest in technology for advanced retailing capabilities. Distribusion provides a standardisation layer that lets online retailers sell tickets for many ground-transport operators through a single API without individual contracts or technical integration. The platform offers access to operators in 70+ countries and connects to online travel agents, meta-search sites, and other mobility platforms. Over the past two years the company expanded into Latin America and reports a 10x increase in passenger numbers. Distribusion aims to connect 100 million passengers per year by the end of 2024. The company says its technology makes search-to-purchase and ticketing digital and comparable for consumers on familiar websites and apps. The recent funding will support further global expansion and platform development. Distribusion has built a global-distribution-system (GDS) for intercity and shuttle bus products, offering an API, white-label solution and widget to let travel companies and search engines sell bus tickets from a single source. The platform reduces technical costs for travel retailers by aggregating disparate bus operators' reservation systems, while increasing online distribution for bus operators. Distribusion already works with more than 55 bus operators across 25 European countries and serves bus data to travel websites and OTAs totaling 10 million monthly visitors, plus 4,000 travel agencies. The company is Berlin-based and has picked up €6 million in new funding. The new capital will be used for product and technology development and to ramp up acquisition and integration of new bus operators and resellers. Distribusion also plans geographic expansion beyond Europe into intercity bus markets in South America and Southeast Asia.

• AYOXXA

  Participated · Series B · Jul 2014

  AYOXXA develops the LUNARIS(TM) beads‑on‑a‑chip multiplex platform to generate high‑quality proteomics data from very small sample volumes and to enable scalable quantitative validation of disease‑relevant biomarkers. The company commercializes a growing portfolio of ready‑to‑use biomarker assays with a focus on inflammation and immune‑response biology and supports translational research from laboratory models to clinical studies. The newly closed financing will provide runway for approximately three to five years and is intended to fund global commercialization across Europe, the US and Asia. The round was led by Prosnav Capital, which the company says will provide direct access to Asian markets through its regional network. As part of the transaction AYOXXA appointed a new management team to drive accelerated commercial growth, naming Dr. Albrecht Läufer CEO and Markus Fehr designated co‑CEO. Former CEO Rodney Turner will advise on the US market, and Dr. Markus Zumbansen will continue as CSO and CTO. AYOXXA is based in Cologne, Germany, and was originally a startup of the National University of Singapore; it also has a US office. Ayoxxa Biosystems is a biotechnology company based in Cologne, Germany, with operations in Singapore. It has developed a proprietary technology platform for multiplex protein analysis. Led by CEO and co-founder Dr. Andreas Schmidt and newly named CFO Andreas Richter, the company is scaling production. The firm intends to use recent funding to continue its production ramp-up and accelerate global commercial activities. In 2014 the company has raised €11.3m to date, reflecting ongoing fundraising to support growth. Its core product and platform position it to expand commercial reach in protein diagnostics and multiplex assays. Ayoxxa Biosystems has developed a proprietary technology platform for multiplex protein analysis and produces corresponding biochips. The company focuses on commercializing its biochip platform for multiplex protein assays. Ayoxxa intends to use recent funding to scale up production of its proprietary biochips and to achieve international commercial readiness. The firm completed a €9.0m Series B financing round to support those plans. Leadership includes Dr. Andreas Schmidt (CEO), Prof. Dieter Trau (CSO), Dr. Markus Zumbansen (VP R&D) and Michael Rasche (Corporate VP Global Commercial Operations). The company is based in Cologne, Germany and Singapore. AyoxxA Biosystems has developed a proprietary platform technology, its In-situ Encoded Bead-based Arrays (IEBA), for multiplexed protein analysis in very small sample volumes. The company produces bead-based biochips designed to enable precise protein measurements from limited samples. In September 2012 AyoxxA closed a €2.6M Series A financing to advance its development. The company intends to use the capital to further develop its platform technology, scale up production of its bead-based biochips and move toward commercialization. AyoxxA was founded in 2010 as a spin-off of the National University of Singapore and is led by CEO Dr. Andreas Schmidt. The company is based in Cologne, Germany, and Singapore.

No current team members are available.