London-based travel startup reveals successful $21.5m Series A investment

Duffel, the company reinventing global travel booking systems for mobile and web travel companies, has raised $21.5m in Series A funding from Benchmark.

Benchmark is joined in this round by Blossom Capital as well as Index Ventures, who participated in Duffel’s $4.7m seed round in 2018.

Yet to launch publicly, Duffel has been building out its platform which will soon allow everyone from individual travel agents to large online travel management companies and tour operators to offer a supposedly seamless travel experience to end customers.

Duffel’s mission is to make the booking experience simpler, faster and cheaper.

Steve Domin, co-founder and CEO of Duffel, said: “The travel industry is underpinned by archaic software and processes that are fundamentally prohibitive for the modern day traveller.

“We are reinventing the underwiring between online agents and the providers - airlines, hotels, transport operators - in much the same way that the payments world is changing for merchants, because of tools like Adyen and Stripe.”

Duffel will use the funds raised to hire more engineers and will continue to grow its team in London in preparation for launch this autumn.

Chetan Puttagunta, general partner at Benchmark, concluded: “We have been watching Duffel from a distance and we are incredibly excited by the possibility it has to create something valuable for customers and travel providers alike.

“Duffel is focused on providing a better booking experience by building a platform that is easy to use with deep functionality.”