Blockchain for the travel industry: Chain4Travel closes seven-figure seed investment
Technology startup Chain4Travel has successfully closed a seed financing of 4.3 million Swiss francs. The freshly raised capital ensures rapid growth for the company as well as the launch of its blockchain and first applications later this year.
Chain4Travel is pursuing an innovative concept for the use of blockchain technology in the international travel industry: the goal is to build a blockchain-based ecosystem, providing a stable and secure platform for B2B and B2C leisure travel products. Tourism partners will be able to efficiently trade and purchase a variety of services on the platform, ranging from hotel rooms and rental cars to even a cup of coffee on a flight, using a set of simplified processes. In addition, travel partners can find all the information they need to effectively sell travel. Information such as hotel and room type mapping, health and safety, Covid updates, warnings of current events and restrictions, regional information and much more, will all be fed live into the platform and available in the form of NFTs. All business partners working with the platform will be able to access this valuable travel data in a standardized and secure way. This versatile network reliably maps current business models, cost-effectively and efficiently; in particular, it also provides a robust basis to launch new leisure travel products and innovative transactions.
Technical benefits: Participating node operators and service providers in the blockchain are uniquely identified and networked via the Know Your Customer (KYC) process, significantly reducing the effort required in the negotiation phase of future transactions. Joining companies will be able to rapidly complete transactions with blockchain partners within seconds and at low transaction costs. In addition, travel specifics, such as availability checking, will be possible via the technology. There will be benefits for all market participants and added values for travelers. The associated test environment, "Columbus" is already live and can be accessed and used by developers.
In the future, the blockchain named "Camino" will be operated and managed by travel industry partners and be economically accessible to all participants. To enable this decentralized approach, Chain4Travel AG will transfer the entire intellectual property (IP) rights as well as the financial reserves to a dedicated foundation. The network will belong to the participating travel companies and will be protected against possible takeovers. The participating blockchain node operators will manage the network via voting rights.
Initial capital providers include various market players who add direct value to the platform. The pre-sale of the Camino token is already planned for the summer months of July/August, in which all interested travel companies can participate. Furthermore, an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) is scheduled for the end of the year, where anyone interested can purchase Camino's new currency at a low price.
Chain4Travel's executive team includes CEO Ralf Usbeck, founder of TravelTainment and Peakwork, as well as COO Thomas Stirnimann, former long-time CEO and now supervisory board member of leading Swiss tour operator Hotelplan, as well as former Hotelplan CIO, Pablo Castillo, now CTO of Chain4Travel. Chain4Travel AG draws on multiple decades of experience in the travel industry, the digital market, the financial sector and the blockchain sector through its team of advisors. The project has already won more than 50 supporters from the travel industry worldwide and more than 100 partners from the tourism and IT sectors are expected to develop and access applications on the new network this year. In addition to Baar (Switzerland) and Düsseldorf (Germany), other Chain4Travel subsidiaries are currently being set up in the USA, Asia and South America.
Ralf Usbeck, CEO of Chain4Travel, said: "We are launching Chain4Travel at the right time. Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize the global travel industry. We have the support of leading partners and experts in the international travel and technology business on our side to help us take off in full swing starting this year."
Thomas Stirnimann, COO of Chain4Travel, added: "The enormous potential of blockchain technology enables the travel industry to adopt new ways of thinking and visions in the distribution and marketing of travel products. The development will move very fast and rapidly change the processes we are used to."
