Redeam, a technology company that automates the way tours and attractions process tickets sold by third party distributors, has raised $7.7 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Vertical Venture Partners, with participation from Thayer Ventures, JetBlue Technology Ventures, Tallwave Capital and Peninsula Ventures. Additional investors include Barney Harford, COO of Uber and former CEO of Orbitz; John Love, former CTO at Concur; Russ Sach, member of the founding team at Expedia; Thomas See, Chief Revenue Officer at Live Nation Entertainment; and Rob Torres, Managing Director at Google Travel.

Redeam will use the funds to grow its team, its product offerings and its sales and business-development efforts. The expanded team will be tasked with signing more suppliers (such as tourist sites, attractions, museums and tour companies) and distributors (including online travel agencies, travel agents and hotels), and with increasing brand awareness to establish Redeam as the leading technology solutions company for the tours and activities industry.


Redeam's proprietary technology solves a very real problem for both attractions and resellers - one that's costing attractions and resellers lost revenue due to fraud, long lines and bad reviews. Unlike other sectors of the travel industry, many tourist attractions still require customers to print out PDF vouchers, then wait in line to have these third-party vouchers validated and exchanged for actual tickets. Redeam's easily integrated, mobile- or tablet-based solution scans and validates any voucher from any reseller and instantly issues a ticket, creating a faster, more pleasant experience. The solution saves attractions time and money previously spent reconciling third-party paper vouchers-an arduous process that requires front-office staff to validate and exchange vouchers and back-office staff to count and verify the vouchers, then send an invoice to each reseller (one tourist attraction might work with hundreds of resellers).

"We're thrilled to start scaling our solution, which can enable any tour or activity company to dramatically improve their customer experience, streamline their operations and grow their channel sales," said Kevin McLaughlin, Redeam's CEO and co-founder. "Not only are we solving a very expensive problem for suppliers; we're boosting resellers' ability to sell mobile tickets, creating happier customers and reducing paper use for everyone."

The funding comes after Redeam received three awards at November's Phocuswright Conference: The General Catalyst Award for Travel Innovation, the Award for Travel Innovation (Startup Category) and the Summit People's Choice Award for Innovation. Redeam's executives are headed to ITB Berlin, where they'll compete in the ITB Startup Pitch powered by Phocuswright on Friday, March 9.


"Our focus is on businesses developing technology to solve pain points in vertical industries. Redeam is ideally positioned to do this in the tours and activities industry, which still uses many pen-and-paper processes, unlike the rest of the travel industry which has been automated for more than 20 years." said Brad Corona, Partner at Vertical Venture Partners.

"The tours and activities sector is long overdue for innovation and disruption," added Chris Hemmeter, managing director of Thayer Ventures. "We're happy to participate in this round for Redeam, whose technology solution is positioned to catapult this sector into the mobile age and bring significant benefits to companies throughout the space. This is the first announced investment for Thayer Ventures III, our third fund, and we look forward to working closely with the Redeam founders and team in the months ahead."

Both Corona and Hemmeter will join Redeam's board of directors.

Redeam makes money by collecting a fee from the supplier on each voucher processed. Since the company launched in the spring of 2017, the number of vouchers it's processed has grown by more than 30 percent month-over-month. Redeam works with hundreds of customers, including CitySightseeing/Gray Line New York, National Geographic Encounter: Ocean Odyssey and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

ABOUT REDEAM
Redeam improves tours and activities businesses by enabling them to offer a digital customer experience, no matter where the customer purchased their ticket. Utilizing Redeam's technology, these businesses can process a scannable mobile ticket that eliminates costly, antiquated processes that involve counting thousands of paper tickets, frequently leading to lost revenue due to fraud, long lines and bad reviews. Redeam was founded by four travel-industry veterans with more than 15 years of industry experience, including leadership and founder roles at companies including Smart Destinations, Flextrip and Nor1. The company serves more than 200 customers, including CitySightseeing/Gray Line New York, Ripley's Believe It or Not, National Geographic Encounter: Ocean Odyssey and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Redeam is based in Boulder, Co. For more information, visit redeam.com.


About Vertical Venture Partners
Vertical Venture Partners ("VVP") is a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm focused on early stage investments in B2B technology companies that target specific vertical markets. For more information on VVP, interested parties may visit www.vvp.vc or contact info@vvp.vc.

About Thayer Ventures
Thayer Ventures is the only venture capital firm specifically focused on the hospitality industry. Since its founding in 2009 as Quest Hospitality Ventures, the firm has partnered with entrepreneurs to create, develop and build technology companies that will revolutionize the hospitality industry. Based in San Francisco, Thayer Ventures currently supports some of the world's leading travel technology companies, including Duetto, ADARA, TripBam, Liftopia, Sonder, and ID90T. Additional information is available on the company's website: www.thayerventures.com.

About JetBlue Technology Ventures
JetBlue Technology Ventures invests in, incubates and partners with early stage startups at the intersection of technology, travel and hospitality to improve the entire travel experience. The company prioritizes investments that advance the customer-centric journey; technology empowered customer service; the future of operations and maintenance; revenue management, sales & distribution; and new regional transport ecosystems. Founded in 2016, JetBlue Technology Ventures is a wholly-owned subsidiary of JetBlue (NASDAQ: JBLU) and is located in Silicon Valley, Calif. For more information, visit www.JetBlueVentures.com.