Fasten Your Seat Belts and Download These Apps: Israeli Travel Apps Worth Your Attention
Israel’s travel tech sector is booming with new startups. Here are some noteworthy local travel apps
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In Israel, there are more than 300 travel tech startups and 400 entrepreneurs working in this sector, according to Itai Green, founder of the Israeli Travel Tech Startup community (ITTS). Green told Calcalist that Israeli travel tech is experiencing a growth spurt, having doubled its size in the past three years, according to data gathered by the ITTS.
Airplane. Photo: Shutterstock “The advantage here is that you can easily connect the techies and the startups with the more traditional and experienced players in the travel ecosystem and implement local technological advancements at home before you go after the rest of the world,” Green said.
Here are seven noteworthy Israeli startups looking to revolutionize the travel industry:
Cool Cousin
Founded: 2016
Founders: Itay Nagler, Itamar Weizman, Nadav Saadia, Gil Azrielant, and Shachar Cotani
Funding: $2 million Seed round led by Elevator Fund
Cool Cousin Ltd. offers a web platform and a mobile app where tourists can connect with savvy, in-the-know locals and source personalized travel tips and information. Tourists can use the Cool Cousin application to view maps of cities, discover unique places and experiences, and share their travel adventures. Cool Cousin’s service is available in 80 cities worldwide.
Cool Cousin. Photo: Cool Cousin
Arbitrip
Founded: 2015
Founders: Orel Jossef and Benny Yonovich
Funding: $4 million in angel funding from the Teddy Sagi Group
Tel Aviv-based Arbitrip offers a platform for booking hotel rooms for business travelers. The platform uses machine learning algorithms to study user preferences and booking requirements and scours the web for matching accommodations. Arbitrip reports 170 business customers worldwide.
Uchange
Founded: 2015
Founder: Avi Kugel
Funding: $500,000 of seed funding from undisclosed investors
Uchange Ltd. developed an application that acts like a social network for currency exchange. Users log in, state the amount and type of currency they wish to change, and match with users nearby to change currencies without fees and commissions.
Pruvo
Founded: 2016
Founders: Regev Brody and Itai Marcipar
Funding: $500,000 led by Hadaka Hatishim Ltd
Pruvo Net Ltd. is aiming to save on the costs of travel accommodation by tracking fluctuations in hotel prices. The automatic service monitors an existing hotel reservation across various websites and alerts the user if there is a better deal for the same booking. According to the company, the service saves an average of 12% per booking.
Roomer
Founded: 2011
Founders: Adi Zellner, Gon Ben-David, Ben Froumine
Funding: $7 million
Roomer Travel, Inc. developed a marketplace where users can offer booked hotels rooms for sale instead of canceling them last minute and incurring a fine. The company's platform connects people who cannot make use of a booked hotel room with travelers looking for accommodation deals.
Roomer. Photo: Roomer
FairFly
Founded: 2013
Founders: Aviel Siman-Tov, Uri Levine, Ami Goldenberg, Gili Lichtman
Funding: $7 million
FairFly Ltd. developed a flight booking application for businesses and organizations. The FairFly platform tracks the prices of already booked flights and automatically cancels and rebooks flights when prices drop last minute and when cancelation fees are low enough to secure savings.
Way2Vat
Founded: 2015
Founders: Amos Simantov, Arnon Yaar, Aviv Barshaf
Funding: $5 million
Way2Vat Ltd. developed a cloud-based platform that manages automated foreign VAT reclaims for global companies and organizations. Way2Vat's application allows business travelers to scan invoices and receipts with their smartphones an automatically report expenses for reimbursement.
