London-based Swiipr, a travel paytech company, announced on Tuesday that it has secured £6M (approximately €7M) in Series A funding, led by Octopus Ventures, with participation from TX Ventures and Solano Partners.
The UK company will use the funds to develop its strategy, product, and technology, including investment into R&D, AI, and data analytics, and to drive international airline market growth.
What does Swiipr solve?
Each year, flight disruptions affect over 500 million global passengers, costing airlines billions of dollars in payouts.
This also leads to significant customer dissatisfaction, reputational damage, and regulatory fines, making compensation a priority for airlines.
aper vouchers are particularly problematic as they are time-consuming to process, prone to fraud, unfriendly to retailers and passengers, and environmentally unsustainable.
Bank transfers can take months to process, physical cash is insecure and expensive to handle at airports, and loyalty points and future travel vouchers are often unpopular.
Swiipr: Transform the airline industry
Swiipr, founded by Tara Spielhagen and Ian Clowes, addresses this problem through an integrated digital platform
Tara Spielhagen, Co-founder and CEO of Swiipr, says, “Legacy compensation systems are unfit for purpose. Not only do they cost an airline billions of dollars every year but they also exacerbate disruption and stress. It doesn’t need to be this way in the digital age, and we are proud to have developed a new solution that solves so many pain points. Our airline partners and their customers are already reaping the benefits”
The platform includes virtual and physical pre-paid compensation cards and a mobile app, giving airlines the tools they need to solve these pain points for both themselves and passengers, whilst being fully compliant with the latest passenger rights regulations.
For passengers, the UK company has launched
- Swiipr Compensation Card, which enables airlines to distribute funds directly to passengers at the point of disruption (such as denied boarding or lost luggage).
- Swiipr Welfare Card, which enables airlines to instantly distribute food & beverage payments when flights are delayed.
The platform also helps airlines slash fraud and processing time, boost loyalty through personalised offers, and gain critical customer retail insights.
Furthermore, airlines can also use Swiipr’s card products to make operational and crisis payments for their staff and crew during trips and delays.
Launched in 2020, Swiipr is already used by 26 airlines in 70 countries, including a major flag carrier whose 4,000 staff use the platform in over 167 of its airports globally.
Co-founder and Chairman of Swiipr, Ian Clowes adds, “Swiipr solves a real live global issue for airlines which is only going to become more challenging with climate change. Now, thanks to Octopus, our Series A capital will enable us to enhance our solutions even further and accelerate our growth helping us to achieve our vision of eliminating compensation friction points wherever they exist”.
The investor
Octopus Ventures, part of Octopus Investments, is one of the largest and most active venture capital investors in the UK and Europe.
The company backs entrepreneurs ─ from the first cheque their business receives, right through to IPO. The company manages £2B and is investing in more than 180 businesses, focusing on the companies solving three of the world’s biggest problems: building a sustainable planet, empowering people, and revitalising healthcare.
Tosin Agbabiaka, Principal at Octopus Ventures says, “We’ve been impressed by the power of Swiipr’s offering to fundamentally transform compensation payments, delivering the scale and efficiency of modern payments to the airline industry while significantly improving the travel experience for their customers.”
“Swiipr’s founders bring the depth of expertise in both the payments and travel industries necessary to tackle the airline compensation challenge. This complimentary skillset, and the effectiveness of its solution, have enabled Swiipr to already gain strong traction with major global carriers this early in its development,” adds Agbabiaka.
TX Ventures is a fintech-focused venture capital investor. The CHF 100M fund invests predominantly in European B2B fintech.
Jens Schleuniger, Managing Partner at TX Ventures, says, “Customer satisfaction and retention has become a differentiating factor for every airline industry. An important aspect is clearly how to compensate frustrated customers in case of denied boarding and/or significant delays. Swiipr has developed a state-of-the-art payment solution that allows every airline to swiftly deal with compensation while offering significant benefits to both the passengers as well as the respective airlines.”
“Apart from the software solution itself, we were particularly impressed by the two founders Tara and Ian as well as the traction that Swiipr has built. The team has been able to attract several tier 1 customers already and is clearly on the track to become a clear market leader in the passenger compensation category,” adds Schleuniger.
Read the orginal article: https://siliconcanals.com/news/startups/london-based-swiipr-secures-7m/
