Viatu completes its seed financing round

Participants in the round include Austrian sustainable travel marketplace, ASI Reisen, and several prominent angels, such as ex-Uber and founder of Ambo Ventures and Kenyan-based lodge Emboo Camp, Loic Amado. So far, Viatu has raised $1.2M. The funds will enable Viatu to finish building its direct booking system and launch the interface to its customers, while continuously improving the functionality of its product based on customer experience.

On average, people spend up to 10 hours, spread across two-to-three weeks, planning a holiday, jumping between almost 38 different sites before finalizing and booking their plans. To ease the process, some people opt for booking a complex multi-day tour through travel agents - 80% of trips to Africa are booked through travel agencies, with only 1-in-5 choosing to book directly. The process can still be slow and expensive.

Founded in 2020 by travel industry professionals Alfredo Seidemann (CEO), Johan Bodenstein (CTO) and Bárbara Buchel (Chief Impact Officer), Viatu makes responsible and sustainable travel easier to access by offering a data-driven, a fully customizable trip builder with live pricing and availability, courtesy of API plug-ins, giving travellers control and ownership of their adventures. Viatu is the first travel-focused self-service website that enables people to book a ‘connected trip’, where they can seamlessly organize every aspect of their itinerary – from accommodation to experiences and car rental – through a single platform. Viatu’s trip builder can cut the searching and booking process from weeks to minutes and give travellers full control of their itineraries, all through one platform.

Viatu focuses on holidays to destinations that are logistically challenging to visit due to the lack of available information and knowledge of where to go, how to book, and the best way to travel between multiple and unfamiliar locations in-country. The startup specialises in multi-day trips to sub-Saharan Africa such as Botswana, Namibia, Rwanda, and South Africa.

“We created Viatu to take the guesswork and extensive manual labour out of booking sustainable travel and empower travellers to become an active force in enriching local environments, economies, and communities. The additional funding will allow us to further develop our platform to make arranging an adventure holiday from your smartphone as easy as booking a taxi or ordering a takeaway” said Bárbara Buchel, Co-founder and Chief Impact Officer at Viatu.

Sustainable travel and recognition
Additionally, Viatu is committed to addressing the needs of the environment and communities by only offering destinations and service providers with sound environmental, social and economic credentials. They also make climate contributions and directly purchase the relevant credits on behalf of their users to help support local projects. For its contributions to sustainable travel, Viatu scores a spot in the finalist list of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Awake Tourism Challenge, a United Nations specialised agency.

Since launching, the startup’s team has grown to 15 people, with 10 nationalities represented, and over half being based in Africa between Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. Viatu has increased its revenue fourfold in its second year of operation and aims to triple its revenue again in 2023.

(Press release/RAN)