Plug and Play

Plug and Play, founded in 2006 and based in Sunnyvale, California, operates as a business accelerator and venture capital firm that focuses on early-stage and seed investments in technology startups. The firm runs 12 industry-specific accelerator programs annually, connecting startups with corporate partners and investors to foster collaboration and growth. Plug and Play's investment strategy encompasses a wide range of sectors, including fintech, health and wellness, travel, cybersecurity, and sustainability, allowing it to support diverse startups from any country. The firm provides various resources, including funding, mentorship, office space, and networking opportunities, and has a global presence with offices in North America, Europe, and Asia. Plug and Play has a strong track record, having helped numerous startups secure over $9 billion in funding since its inception. Its programs aim to refine business models and facilitate introductions to potential investors, ultimately contributing to the growth of the startup ecosystem.

Saeed Amidi

Co-Founder & Co-Chief Executive Officer

Kiswana Browne

Associate

Gabriela Dow

Co-Founder and Partner

Matt Helmers

Director of Strategy and Innovation

Alex Roudi

Managing Partner, San Diego

Marc Steiner

General Counsel

Jupe Tan

Managing Partner, Asia Pacific & Senior Vice President, Global Operations

Phillip Vincent

Managing Partner, East Asia

Chen Zhao

Managing Partner, China

Past deals in Travel

Wheel the World

Seed Round in 2020
Wheel the World Inc. provides tour services for people with disabilities, their friends, and family worldwide. The company provides destinations, tours packages, tours and activities, and accommodation services through its online portal. The company was incorporated in 2017 and is based in Berkeley, California.

Wheel the World

Seed Round in 2020
Wheel the World Inc. provides tour services for people with disabilities, their friends, and family worldwide. The company provides destinations, tours packages, tours and activities, and accommodation services through its online portal. The company was incorporated in 2017 and is based in Berkeley, California.

Moonfish

Convertible Note in 2019
Moonfish is a company that specializes in providing flight deals while also developing a personalized AI discount application aimed at enhancing online sales for merchants. Its machine-learning model analyzes website visitor behavior to predict which users are likely to make a purchase. The application automatically offers tailored discounts to visitors who are less likely to convert, thereby encouraging them to become paying customers. This approach helps online store operators increase sales and lower customer acquisition costs, making it a valuable tool for businesses looking to optimize their revenue.

Shep

Convertible Note in 2019
Shep’s browser extension-based tool provides travel programs with an easy way to capture employee bookings made on consumer travel sites, messaging employees about the travel policy, while capturing those off-channel bookings for the travel team.

Lumo

Seed Round in 2018
At lumo,They’re obsessed with making air travel smarter. They predict flight delays months, weeks, hours ahead of time, making planning easier and flight changes less stressful.

Travelstride

Seed Round in 2018
Travelstride, incorporated in 2014 and based in San Francisco, California, operates a comprehensive reviews marketplace that connects travelers with a variety of pre-planned travel experiences, including guided tours, adventure travel packages, and small ship and river cruises. The platform allows users to search for trips by destination, activity type, and travel company, facilitating the discovery of suitable travel options. With over 50,000 professionally planned trips available worldwide, Travelstride caters to diverse preferences and budgets, offering itineraries crafted by more than 1,500 local experts and global companies. The company aims to enhance travel experiences by fostering a community that encourages exploration and connection through well-planned journeys. Travelstride has influenced over three million travelers, supported by a team with extensive backgrounds in the travel and tech industries, and has received recognition as a leading resource for tours and travel technology innovation.

Utrip

Series A in 2017
Utrip is a free travel planning technology that brings together the best in artificial intelligence and human experience, making it easy for travelers to quickly create their perfect trip. It is a destination discovery and travel planning platform that brings together the best in artificial intelligence and human experience to help travelers discover destinations and plan trips in uniquely personal and enjoyable ways. Utrip PRO helps increase engagement, loyalty and conversion rates by providing a white labeled offering of the Utrip platform to hospitality brands, cruise lines, points of interest, airlines, and Destination Marketing Organizations.

Atameo

Seed Round in 2016
Atameo allows travellers to capture their trips in a completely new way. It records your route, adds your photos, videos and music and turns your adventures into your personal travel profile. Have all your travel experiences in one place and find out more about your travel style by diving into your personal travel statistics: How far did you travel last year? What’s the highest point you have been to? How much of the world have you seen? Inspire others to go out and explore, while getting inspired by some of the most daring journeys of our time. Explore. Capture. Inspire.

Essentialist

Seed Round in 2016
Essentialist offers travel services that designs itineraries online. Essentialist was formerly known as The Bellhop, S.L. The company was incorporated in 2012 and is headquartered in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

Vergence Technologies

Convertible Note in 2015
..

Parlance

Convertible Note in 2015
Parlance

Meshtrip Inc

Seed Round in 2015
Meshtrip Inc is a web-and-mobile-based application. It aggregates instantly bookable vacation homes in 190 countries. The company only combines the listings from hosts and property managers who set up their properties with an auto-confirmation option and a guaranteed availability. It offers accommodations that are available in real time and can be reserved on the spot. This eliminates the time wasted on searching through multiple websites. Meshtrip Inc was founded by Valentin Tsay, Adam Makarenko, and Vadim Rabinovich 2014; and is located in San Francisco, California.

LoungeBuddy

Series A in 2015
LoungeBuddy, Inc. is a mobile application that enables travelers to access airport lounges on a short-term basis, enhancing their travel experience. Founded in 2013 and based in San Francisco, the company operates as a subsidiary of American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. LoungeBuddy allows users to discover, book, and access lounges worldwide, addressing the significant excess capacity in the airport lounge industry, which currently accommodates fewer entries than available space. This gap represents an annual excess capacity value exceeding $3.5 billion. As a technology-focused entity in the airport lounge sector, LoungeBuddy has developed a patent-pending, real-time inventory management platform designed to optimize passenger flow and facilitate transactions for various partners, including online travel agencies and airlines. This innovative approach aims to generate additional revenue for lounge operators while providing valuable offers to travelers.

EsLife

Seed Round in 2014
EsLife helps his clients to find trustworthy, reliable professionals to take care of their families and homes. EsLife gives you back time to enjoy doing what you really would like to do like being with your family, hanging out with your friends or travel around.

Adventure Bucket List

Seed Round in 2014
Adventure Bucket List, based in Sunnyvale, California, operates a business-to-business platform that focuses on unified reservation management and sales distribution for tours and activities. The platform allows activity providers to share their offerings, manage calendars, and track customer purchasing metrics, all while facilitating payment processing. By hosting partners, Adventure Bucket List enhances the visibility of activities and tours, enabling local businesses to generate additional revenue and gain insights into client preferences. This enterprise SaaS solution transforms traditional tourism listing websites into dynamic resources that drive visitor spending, positioning itself as a key player in the tourism sector.

Travelog Pte Ltd.

Convertible Note in 2014
Travelog is a media platform that collects the latest, hip and trendy travel spots across Asia by partnering with local experts, publications and brands. Featured by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Tech In Asia and Yahoo!, we aim to be the #1 platform for travellers wanting to know what's really happening in Asia. Travelog also helps travel brands with content marketing, customized city guides and recommendations available on any mobile or web platform. If interested, please contact us at hello@travelog.me

GetGoing

Convertible Note in 2014
GetGoing is a venture-backed San Francisco startup changing the way people travel by making it more fun and affordable. Our goal is to help leisure travelers discover new getaways, save big (up to 40%) and travel more. We are working with major airlines and hotels to revolutionize the travel industry while delivering the best experience and prices to our users. Currently, we fly to over 2000 destinations worldwide. Our proprietary pricing method helps airlines fill unsold seats (up to 20% of available seats) by selling to discretionary, price-sensitive leisure travelers. To purchase a ticket on our website, customers need to select two destinations and commit to a non-refundable purchase. During the flight selection process, customers can choose arrival and departure times, flight duration, and the number of stops. GetGoing selects one of the destinations, revealing it to the customer after processing the booking and payment. Since our model requires destination flexibility, we ensure that our sales exclude business travelers, those visiting friends and family, and non-flexible leisure customers. We have eight U.S. and international patents and keep expanding our intellectual property portfolio with innovative pricing, search and customer segmentation methods.

LoungeBuddy

Seed Round in 2013
LoungeBuddy, Inc. is a mobile application that enables travelers to access airport lounges on a short-term basis, enhancing their travel experience. Founded in 2013 and based in San Francisco, the company operates as a subsidiary of American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. LoungeBuddy allows users to discover, book, and access lounges worldwide, addressing the significant excess capacity in the airport lounge industry, which currently accommodates fewer entries than available space. This gap represents an annual excess capacity value exceeding $3.5 billion. As a technology-focused entity in the airport lounge sector, LoungeBuddy has developed a patent-pending, real-time inventory management platform designed to optimize passenger flow and facilitate transactions for various partners, including online travel agencies and airlines. This innovative approach aims to generate additional revenue for lounge operators while providing valuable offers to travelers.

Hubskip

Seed Round in 2013
Hubskip has now rebranded as Flyr. Travel plans changed? We got you covered. Our technology enables travellers to insure themselves agains rising airfares or purchase an airline ticket with the flexibility to change or cancel afterwards. Our mission is to become one of the world's premier travel technology companies. In everything we do, we strive for transparency, fairness and flexibility. Our vision is to continually improve all aspects of travel through innovation and iteration, creating a better tomorrow than today By providing other travel companies free access to our technology, we try to deliver on our commitment to create real value for the complete travel industry.

TravelTipz

Series B in 2013
TravelTipz is a prominent social travel platform based in Moscow, Russia, that facilitates travel planning and sharing among users. Launched in April 2011, it has grown to become the largest site of its kind in Russia, surpassing both local and global competitors. The platform features over 650,000 user-generated reviews, with a significant portion contributed by "social" users, enhancing the relevance and reliability of the content. TravelTipz enables individuals to connect with friends to collaboratively plan and book their travels, leveraging social data to streamline the decision-making process. The company has garnered support from both Russian and international venture capitalists and angel investors, further solidifying its position in the travel industry.

Meetmeals

Seed Round in 2013
Eat and food with anyone, anywhere. Meetmeals allows you to organize social, gastronomic gatherings among people who love cooking and people who enjoy discovering new and different dishes. Food lovers and Cook Lovers can meet and experience a new level of gastronomy.

GetGoing

Series A in 2013
GetGoing is a venture-backed San Francisco startup changing the way people travel by making it more fun and affordable. Our goal is to help leisure travelers discover new getaways, save big (up to 40%) and travel more. We are working with major airlines and hotels to revolutionize the travel industry while delivering the best experience and prices to our users. Currently, we fly to over 2000 destinations worldwide. Our proprietary pricing method helps airlines fill unsold seats (up to 20% of available seats) by selling to discretionary, price-sensitive leisure travelers. To purchase a ticket on our website, customers need to select two destinations and commit to a non-refundable purchase. During the flight selection process, customers can choose arrival and departure times, flight duration, and the number of stops. GetGoing selects one of the destinations, revealing it to the customer after processing the booking and payment. Since our model requires destination flexibility, we ensure that our sales exclude business travelers, those visiting friends and family, and non-flexible leisure customers. We have eight U.S. and international patents and keep expanding our intellectual property portfolio with innovative pricing, search and customer segmentation methods.

TouristEye

Seed Round in 2012
TouristEye is a mobile application that enables users to collect destinations and activities to plan their trips and weekend getaways. More than 500,000 people have already traveled with TouristEye taking all the information and maps on their mobile phones without internet. TouristEye’s portfolio of features includes the collection ideas for its users’ trips and getaways; planning trips in seconds without missing anything important; community-created wishlists and collaborative wishlists; integrated information from Yelp, Foursquare, and other services; texts, photos, and maps completely offline; and providing personalized ideas to escape every weekend. Co-founded by [Ariel Camus](https://www.crunchbase.com/person/ariel-camus) and [Javier Fernandez Escribano](https://www.crunchbase.com/person/javier-fernandez-escribano), TouristEye was launched in 2010. It is based in Madrid.

Hubskip

Angel Round in 2012
Hubskip has now rebranded as Flyr. Travel plans changed? We got you covered. Our technology enables travellers to insure themselves agains rising airfares or purchase an airline ticket with the flexibility to change or cancel afterwards. Our mission is to become one of the world's premier travel technology companies. In everything we do, we strive for transparency, fairness and flexibility. Our vision is to continually improve all aspects of travel through innovation and iteration, creating a better tomorrow than today By providing other travel companies free access to our technology, we try to deliver on our commitment to create real value for the complete travel industry.

TravelTipz

Convertible Note in 2012
TravelTipz is a prominent social travel platform based in Moscow, Russia, that facilitates travel planning and sharing among users. Launched in April 2011, it has grown to become the largest site of its kind in Russia, surpassing both local and global competitors. The platform features over 650,000 user-generated reviews, with a significant portion contributed by "social" users, enhancing the relevance and reliability of the content. TravelTipz enables individuals to connect with friends to collaboratively plan and book their travels, leveraging social data to streamline the decision-making process. The company has garnered support from both Russian and international venture capitalists and angel investors, further solidifying its position in the travel industry.

GetGoing

Seed Round in 2012
GetGoing is a venture-backed San Francisco startup changing the way people travel by making it more fun and affordable. Our goal is to help leisure travelers discover new getaways, save big (up to 40%) and travel more. We are working with major airlines and hotels to revolutionize the travel industry while delivering the best experience and prices to our users. Currently, we fly to over 2000 destinations worldwide. Our proprietary pricing method helps airlines fill unsold seats (up to 20% of available seats) by selling to discretionary, price-sensitive leisure travelers. To purchase a ticket on our website, customers need to select two destinations and commit to a non-refundable purchase. During the flight selection process, customers can choose arrival and departure times, flight duration, and the number of stops. GetGoing selects one of the destinations, revealing it to the customer after processing the booking and payment. Since our model requires destination flexibility, we ensure that our sales exclude business travelers, those visiting friends and family, and non-flexible leisure customers. We have eight U.S. and international patents and keep expanding our intellectual property portfolio with innovative pricing, search and customer segmentation methods.

TravelTipz

Seed Round in 2010
TravelTipz is a prominent social travel platform based in Moscow, Russia, that facilitates travel planning and sharing among users. Launched in April 2011, it has grown to become the largest site of its kind in Russia, surpassing both local and global competitors. The platform features over 650,000 user-generated reviews, with a significant portion contributed by "social" users, enhancing the relevance and reliability of the content. TravelTipz enables individuals to connect with friends to collaboratively plan and book their travels, leveraging social data to streamline the decision-making process. The company has garnered support from both Russian and international venture capitalists and angel investors, further solidifying its position in the travel industry.