2019 Recap: A look back at Travelstop's journey

The past year has been an action-packed one for us here at Travelstop. Our goal has always been to listen to our customers’ feedback and add new features based on what you want and need. With your support, 2019 has been no exception: We introduced a new app for both iOS and Android, and added a ton of features to improve your business travel experience.

On the corporate side of things, we’re also proud and grateful to announce that we raised a fresh round of funding, earned industry awards, and established ourselves as thought leaders in the world of corporate travel.

Join us as we take a quick trip down memory lane and look at Travelstop’s 2019 milestones!

January

We kicked the year off with the launch of the Travelstop app for iOS, which lets you access your trip information and manage your business expenses on your Apple device.

Designed as the digital-savvy business traveler’s personal companion, our iOS app enables you to add travel expenses on the fly, take and store images of receipts, and submit expense reports in seconds. You can now relax after returning from your business trips instead of spending hours manually filling up spreadsheets.

February

Building on the momentum of our app launch, we beefed things up by rolling out a slew of new features in February, including:

• Integrated baggage purchase, which lets you easily customise your baggage for your onward and return flights.
• Flights interlining, which allows you to book different carriers on a single itinerary—and avoid searching for and booking flights on various websites.
• Quick onboarding, which makes it easier than ever to bring in new users and appoint admin roles via invite.

April

But we were just getting started. The team shipped even more features in April!

• With tags, you can add trip-level details and track your trips according to project, event, or cost centre.
• We also rolled out a feature that lets travel managers quickly add any property to their company’s list of preferred hotels. Your employees will immediately see these properties as highlighted hotels.
• And you now have the ability to set up automatic email notifications during important events, such as when employees book a flight or hotel, or when an expense report is approved.

June

As we reached 2019’s halfway point, we added some of our customers’ most requested features to Travelstop.

• We rolled out group bookings for flights—by far one of our most requested features from travel managers.
• We also provided a smoother checkout flow for flights, which lets you input passenger details, select baggage options, and make payments on one page. It’s a small addition, but it makes booking flights up to three times faster.
• Users and travel managers can now share itineraries with colleagues and managers from the booking summary page before finalising them.

We’re also honoured to have been featured as one of Skift’s top travel startups to watch out for in 2019. Skift is one of the travel industry’s top media organisations, gathering and reporting the latest news and trends in the global travel landscape.

Some names that have earned a mention in Skift’s previous top startup lists include the likes RedDoorz (Singapore) and Kiwi (Czech Republic).

July

July saw the infusion of a fresh round of funding into Travelstop. We managed to raise US$3 million in pre-Series A funding led by Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Accel, together with participation from Strive (formerly GREE Ventures) and SeedPlus, one of our existing investors.

We’re also happy to welcome Accel’s Prashanth Prakash to our Board of Directors, as part of this round of funding. This development will help us stay competitive and redefine the business travel landscape.

September

On top of the milestones reached in August, celebrating our first birthday that month had us in a celebratory mood. But the team went right back to work to roll out a new set of features!

• We made it possible to place company or personal cards on file, which means you can say goodbye to rummaging through your wallet when you book a flight or hotel. The feature is open to both travel managers and employees.
• We also overhauled our hotel search and booking experience to make it more enjoyable for users. We increased image sizes, enhanced room-level filters, and put all the checkout steps on a single page to speed up the hotel booking process.

October

October was a particularly exciting month.

First, Travelstop was named the Most Exciting New Startup by TravelMole Asia Pacific Awards 2019 at ITB Asia. The event saw the participation of more than 10,000 travel industry professionals from 110 countries.

Next, we joined a panel at WiT Singapore 2019 with Mezi.com and FCM Travel Solutions to discuss innovation in the corporate travel industry.

Last but not least, we finally launched Travelstop for Android. Since introducing our iPhone app in January, an Android version has been the most requested item on our list. It comes with all the features on our iOS app, and will serve as a perfect travel companion for Android users.

November

Most recently, we packed our bags and flew to Florida to showcase Travelstop at the 2019 Phocuswright Conference. You can check out our pitch, delivered by Travelstop founder and CEO Prashant Kirtane.

What’s on the horizon?

So much has happened in 2019, thanks to the support of our clients, industry partners, investors, and startup community. Our team is excited to see what the new year will bring. At the moment, we’re busy applying finishing touches to a new and improved trip approval workflow. The team is also working hard to improve our hotels product, so stay tuned for these exciting developments.

As always, if you are a Travelstop user, we’d love to hear your feedback. Feel free to drop us a line at feedback@travelstop.com. Who knows, your idea just might be the catalyst for our next feature rollout!