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A great time to try & build things 🧩

A great time to try & build things 🧩

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September 12, 2025

Hi there,

Earlier this week over coffee, I was chatting with 2 founders about how different it feels to build in travel right now. One of them mentioned that just a few years back it was all about waiting: waiting for contracts, waiting for access, waiting for someone to finally say yes.

“It’s still a messy puzzle, but at least the pieces are on the table now.” she said.

Exactly - seems like founders can finally get going.

Instead of focusing on permissions and gatekeepers, builders can build bridges: between old systems and new ideas, between corporates and startups, between travelers and the experiences still waiting to be created.

Honestly, it feels like one of the best times to be making stuff in travel.

Go find the spot for your puzzle piece :)

^{TOGETHER WITH NUITÉE}

Want to build a travel app but don’t know where to start?

The Travel-Lite Hackathon, hosted by Nuitée and Google at their London office, is your chance. With liteAPI, anyone (from students to founders) can launch a travel solution in hours, not months.

Reimagine the future of travel with Nuitée liteAPI. Build a unique travel experience, showcase your innovation, and get the chance to win 10,000 € + a weekend getaway. 🏆

^{FUNDING SPOTLIGHT}

Think of all the small experience providers you’ve met while traveling: the guide who takes you kayaking at sunrise, the workshop host who teaches you local cooking, the family running tours in their hometown. Behind the scenes, most of them are juggling booking systems, payments, marketing, and lots of admin work through different tools.

That’s the headache Understory wants to fix. The Aarhus-based startup has just raised €12 million (Series A) to bring all of those moving parts into one AI-powered platform, so creators can spend less time on logistics and more time designing experiences travelers actually remember.

💬 “We see this as both recognition and responsibility. It validates the path we have been on and the bold vision we are chasing. With this investment, Understory is positioned to scale faster and push the boundaries of what the experience industry can be. Our aim is not incremental change, but real transformation.” CEO Lasse Kjær shared with FutureTravel.

Most big platforms are built around the traveler, getting them to click, book, and review. Understory is built around the creators. By handling bookings, payments, and promotion in one place, it gives experience makers the tools to run smoothly, get noticed, and keep their focus where it belongs: on the travelers standing right in front of them.

Other deals 💸

🇬🇷 Boatscribe picked up €250k to make yacht lending and access to the water more affordable. Some of you might remember them as a finalist at last year’s FutureTravel pitch competition :)

🇪🇸 Itinerary raised €260k to keep growing its personalized travel itinerary app, consolidating its spot in Spain’s travel-tech scene.

🇴🇲 Godoba got a boost as Omran acquired a stake to drive Oman’s digital tourism transformation.

🇸🇪 Standab secured €3.6M to roll out its micromobility network across Europe.

🇩🇪 Giata snapped up UK-based Smartseer to add AI-powered decisioning to its distribution tools.

🇳🇴 Travelin.ai is integrating SabreMosaic lodging content to make corporate trips smarter and more seamless.

Before checking out

Not funding rounds. Not product launches. Not deals. Just things we saw this week that made us think twice…

🔎 The oh-so-many layers of booking
Nice overview of just how many unseen players sit behind a “simple” hotel search. APIs, algorithms, and third-party systems quietly shape what travelers see... and what they don’t. A good reminder of how complex today’s distribution really is. (via LSE)

♟️ Airbnb’s “everything app” ambitions
At a Goldman Sachs event, Brian Chesky said Airbnb is leaning hard into AI and aiming to become more than rentals, a platform for living, community, and services. The challenge: scaling tech without losing the human touch. (via PhocusWire)

See you next week,
Ana

Thank you for reading until the end.

The content of this newsletter is curated and published by Ana Metz, an innovation expert, passionate about technology and excited about the future of travel.

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FutureTravel is a weekly newsletter about the future of travel, featuring the most exciting news about innovation, trends and startups in the industry.