Europe’s leading multi-modal travel booking platform raises funds amidst “clear signs of market recovery.”

Formerly known as GoEuro, Berlin-based travel booking platform Omio announced Wednesday its successful raise of $100 million from existing and new investors. These included Temasek, Kinnevik, Goldman Sachs Asset Management L.P., NEA, and Kleiner Perkins. (Deccan Herald)

Organic growth and “opportunistic” M&A

Describing the current situation as an “unprecedented crisis in global travel,” Omio has bounced right back with a cash infusion of $100 million from investors.

The travel platform said it will use the new money to:

• Fuel continued organic growth
• Make opportunistic acquisitions
• Develop new products following changing consumer expectations due to the pandemic
• Provide financial headroom for the coming years

The new funds have been raised through the issue of convertible notes that the investors can convert into equity shares at a discount when Omio next raises funds via equity.

Cumulatively, Omio has raised $ 400 million.

An optimistic take on the travel market

Omio has timed the fundraise with a perceived turnaround in the travel market. It said it saw clear signs of market recovery as Europeans plan last-minute summer vacations and return to traveling locally.

“We have seen a very promising recovery of our business over the past weeks, based on the unique strength of our product which includes all modes of transport across multiple markets,” said Naren Shaam, Founder and CEO of Omio. “Especially in Germany and France, we are already above 50 percent of our pre-COVID-19 bookings despite marginal marketing spend.”

“Business is coming back much stronger than we expected,” Shaam told Reuters in an interview.

Virus meltdown follows a marquee acquisition

Just last year, in October, Omio acquired Melbourne-based multimodal travel veteran Rome2rio in a bid to grow global from its European beginnings. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Though Omio intended to maintain intact the unique brand equity of Rome2rio, the two companies certainly planned to create new products by combining Rome2rio’s end-to-end journey planning service with the huge transport inventory available for booking on Omio.

When the virus struck, and the travel market cratered, Omio went into damage control mode. It put 90% of its staff on furlough.

However, the travel start-up enjoys an advantage over rivals because of its multimodal travel offerings and global partnerships with transportation providers.

This diversified reach enables Omio to quickly switch focus to changing traveler preferences. Shaam told TechCrunch that this feature helped the business comeback much stronger from the COVID debacle.

The Omio team of 350 people is back to working again at full strength.

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