Event: 2017 Phocuswright Europe
Product: Loco
Category: Startup Company
HQ: Tel Aviv, Israel
Principal(s): Amit Golan, CEO & Co-Founder
Funding: $500,000 in seed money.
Product Description: Loco is a mobile-only platform & ecosystem. Highlighting OTAs' local market expertise & unique inventory, augmented by dynamic packaging, Loco commands high conversion rates, & positions regional OTAs as viable competitors to global players. Under the hood is a flexible integration layer & powerful personalization technology that other travel tech startups plug into to offer their value proposition. All this comes packaged with battle-tested best practices for building a mobile brand.
Business Model: Loco gives away its platform to its customers free of charge; our powerful integration layer and conversion-focused app ensure they start generating bookings almost immediately. In addition to sharing the resulting revenue with customers, we do the same with other startups that use our platform as a launch pad to accelerate their time-to-market.
Competitors: We are not familiar with another industry player working to build a confederation of regional OTAs; however, their competitors are, in a sense, ours.
Competitive Edge: Loco is on a mission to create the world's first mobile-based alliance of regional OTAs and travel technology startups. To an industry that is steeped in cutthroat competition, we bring the power of collaboration, creating mutual success for agencies, startups and consumers alike.
Market Opportunity: Loco is riding the tidal wave of mobile travel, which within a few years will account for one out of every two online bookings. Further amplifying our opportunity is OTA GBV's double-digit growth. Bringing together and creating synergies for the world's leading regional OTAs translates in and of itself to a market worth dozens of billions of dollars a year; delivering a ready-made mobile market for other travel tech startups opens up additional revenue generators fueled by true win-win dynamics.
Early Customers: Daka90, Israel's leading OTA, founded in 1998. We are in active negotiations with other OTAs in several markets.
