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In the first two quarters of 2016 travel tech startups raised almost $1.5B across across 141 deals. An increasing number of deals are moving overseas, as 67% of deals are occurring outside the United States in 2016 year-to-date.
We used CB Insights data and analytics to dig into the data surrounding travel tech investment trends, including deals and dollar breakdowns, deal share by top countries, and most well-funded companies.
We defined travel tech as tech-enabled companies offering services and products focused on tourism, including booking services, search and planning platforms, on-demand travel, and recommendation sites. Car-hailing services are excluded.
Deals and dollars
The travel tech space saw the third-highest deal count by quarter in Q2’16 (despite a 35% decline in funding). Travel tech startups raised $587M across 73 deals in Q2’16 representing a 7% jump in deal activity over Q1’16.
With deal count hitting 73 deals in Q2’16, 3 out of the last 4 quarters recorded 70+ deals including large rounds to Huoli (Series C, $144M) and Oyo Rooms (Series D, $100M). Despite these two rounds, deals above $40M+ were largely absent this quarter which is mainly why funding decreased 35% over Q1’16. 
Deal share by top countries
Deal share by top country has shifted over the last 5 years.
In 2011 the US market accounted for nearly half of all deal share for travel tech startups. Since then, US share has seen a steep decline accounting for just 33% of deal share in 2016 year-to-date. The drop in US deal share is largely attributable to the rise in activity in Asia, specifically in India and China. Additionally, European countries like the UK and Germany are taking an increasing share of deals accounting for 15% of deal share in 2016 year-to-date. 
Most well-funded startups
AirBnB is by far the most well-funded company on the list having raised more funding than the rest of the 9 companies’ total funding combined ($3.2B).
The aforementioned mobile flight booking company Huoli is the new startup to enter the ranks of the top 10 most well-funded travel tech startups . Additionally, the list includes notable unicorns like Asia-based TuJia and South America-based Decolar. 
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