{"id":42524,"date":"2023-10-20T15:21:49","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:21:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/brisbane-startup-travello-secures-1-26-million-to-take-things-to-the-next-level-startupsmart-2\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:21:49","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:21:49","slug":"brisbane-startup-travello-secures-1-26-million-to-take-things-to-the-next-level-startupsmart-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/brisbane-startup-travello-secures-1-26-million-to-take-things-to-the-next-level-startupsmart-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Brisbane startup Travello secures $1.26 million to take things to the next level – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

Brisbane startup Travello has secured $1.26 million in funding as it looks to take its social network for travellers to the next level.<\/p>\n

Travello, previously called Outbound, offers a platform for travellers to meet and connect with others when abroad<\/a> and is now used in more than 200 countries.<\/p>\n

The cash injection comes from a group of Queensland angel investors and follows from a small pre-seed round and funding from the River City Labs muru-D accelerator program, bringing the total funding in the startup to $1.35 million.<\/p>\n

Travello co-founder and CEO Ryan Hanly says he made nearly 40 pitches to secure the funding and is glad to keep it local in his home state.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s brilliant and it\u2019s a really good sign of where the ecosystem is at and where investor mindset is at,\u201d Hanly tells StartupSmart<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe appetite is starting to rise.\u201d<\/p>\n

The funding will be used to rapidly expand the startup, with two new people already brought into the tech team as well as a new commercial director, Hanly says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve achieved validation and realised we have something that people want so now it\u2019s time to scale up,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the impetus for us raising money.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now have a marketing budget to spend on user acquisition and getting our name out there. Before this we just haven\u2019t had that opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

With plans to enter a new growth phase, he says the app\u2019s core offering lends itself to rapid global expansions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe beauty of our offering is that even if travellers pick it up in Australia they\u2019ll then drag it around overseas,\u201d Hanly says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe beauty of that is it\u2019s nomadic and by its nature we\u2019ve got customers taking it around the world for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Travello is a graduate of the inaugural River City Labs muru-D accelerator program last year<\/a>, receiving $40,000 in seed funding in exchange for 6% equity.<\/p>\n

Hanly says this was a priceless experience for him and co-founder Mark Cantoni.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe program was excellent for us,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt allowed us to crystalise our ideas and product, and focus on what we were doing. As founders we really developed and matured a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Founded in 2014 in Hanly\u2019s home, Travello has now grown out of the River City Labs co-working space and into a new 100sqm office in Brisbane\u2019s Fortitude Valley.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a photo of Mark and I launching the app in my kitchen \u2013 we\u2019re sitting having frozen pie and a cup of tea,\u201d Hanly says.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow there are seven of us and I\u2019m sitting in a boardroom in an office in Fortitude Valley. It\u2019s really satisfying to see how far we\u2019ve come.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em> Facebook,<\/em> Twitter, LinkedIn and SoundCloud.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brisbane startup Travello has secured $1.26 million in funding as it looks to take its social network for travellers to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42524"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}