Denis Opudo
Busbud is an online travel agent that deals with direct booking of thousands of bus users globally. It was established in 2011 and employs a technological approach in the travel sector. Busbud has distinctive monthly visitors that earn it approximately $3 million from over 100 countries. Besides, it provides ticket booking through its Android and iOS apps. It also has contractors located in over 1,300 marketplaces.
The business is mainly located in Montreal, Canada which has been very reliable to the Coast regions. The business has also stated its budget properly. Therefore, this has allowed for the good development and extension of their main roads. Busbud management believes that they are in growth progress. The startup has a firm stability for quicker development with the current financing round. Busbud has also faired Latin America. Their most current markets are located in Southeast Asia and South Africa. Moreover, they have been collaborating with the local bus companies for cheap bus booking in these regions.
Busbud in collaboration with other multi-model travel booking platforms targets to make easy the traveling plans and the buying of the tickets to enlarge their market. Just as its name states, Busbud is concentrated on intercity coach and bus travel. Three years ago, the management team contributed some money for its improvement. The conjoined platform has made it through to the point as stated by Michael Gradek, Fredric Thouin, and Lp Maurice.
Its series A is worth $9 million and iNovia capital funded series B of Busbud amounting to $11 million. It has new stakeholders supporting the company and they include; Teralys, Claridge and Plaza Ventures. The current shareholders like Real Ventures has also joined hand in the round. Former CEO of Expedia, Philippe Vimard, former CTO/COO of the publicly -listed eDreams/ ODIEGO TravelGroup and Erick Blanchford are also not left behind in partnering with the new stakeholders for the series B. Moreover, Magaly Charbonneau, a principal at iNovia also joins together with them.
The worldwide market intensity bus travel is large and has many passengers compared to the air travel. Busbud has its best market located in North America and Europe. The American, Canadian, Spanish tourist and British are the most frequent buyers of the ticket making the business to run well. Close to 90% of the bus runways are now accessible to the booking through apps. In the previous years, VC money has contributed to the booking platform – such as Goldman searches and Kleiner Perkins and Pan-European booking platform GoEuro that has contributed around $150M.
Busbud may enlarge its association with other rich companies which have unique multi-model transport focus. The multi-model travel platform includes Checkmybus, Liligo.fr, train line and Rome to Rio which is said to be selective and also has competition from other routes like distribution. A B2B startup which provides API that also allows for booking of Bus directly into travel.B2B was launched in 2015 and it provides an API and white label programs together with the associates to connect the bus inventory. Busbud has plans in approving its experience in mobile, mobile user travel reviewers, location mapping, bus amenity info, and increasing more salary options. It is also planning on working on real-time Bus tracking, travel tips, and better itinerary info.
