Nikki Durkin\u2019s 99dresses<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
The news comes after Flightfox raised $800,000 in funding in San Francisco, although half of that amount came from Australian investors such as Mick Liubinskas from Pollenizer.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Despite its early success in the US, Startmate co-founder Niki Scevak says he is confident Flightfox will return to Australia in some sort of capacity.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cSilicon Valley remains the central station for start-ups, and Lauren and Todd\u2019s decision to use that to their full advantage makes sense,\u201d Scevak says.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cAlso, I think it\u2019s a lot more complicated than just going to the US or staying in Australia, so I think they\u2019ll be back and forth… It\u2019s not either or.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Scevak says rather than feeling guilty about venturing to the United States, Australian start-ups simply have a strong allegiance to their home country.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my experience, they always end up back in Australia,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
According to Scevak, Flightfox was a standout from the beginning, mainly because of its unwavering focus on the customer.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were very metrics-driven and extremely focused on the customer. They had an initial version [of the service] up within a few weeks,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir one guiding light has been the customer and their passion for the customer… At the same time, they\u2019re just getting started.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cNow they have some capital in place, they can put some more people in place. There are more opportunities, but it\u2019s very much the beginning of the journey.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
According to McLeod, who previously created and sold travel site Globetrooper, the idea for Flightfox came to her while she was travelling in Bolivia.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cI envisaged flight experts all over the world competing against one another to find me the absolute best flight,\u201d McLeod told The Age<\/i>.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019d use industry software, local offers, and tricks of the trade to uncover the lowest prices.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
McLeod said the decision to venture to the US is \u201cnot about the money\u201d.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not about a labor shortage, and it certainly isn\u2019t about access to foreign markets,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead, this supposed \u2018brain drain\u2019 is all about Silicon Valley having the richest and most meritocratic start-up culture on the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you care at all about tech start-ups, it just makes sense to spend time here. Imagine learning French and never travelling to France.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Australian travel start-up Flightfox has been accepted into US-based incubator Y Combinator and raised $800,000 in capital, just months after<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45314"}],"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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}