JetBlue Technology Ventures Invests in Transparent, the Leading Market Intelligence Company for Vacation Rentals
July 02 2021 - 6:00AM
Business Wire
Transparent joins JetBlue Technology Ventures’
portfolio of travel tech startups representing the fast recovering
vacation rental industry.
JetBlue Technology Ventures (JTV), the venture capital
subsidiary of JetBlue Airways (Nasdaq: JBLU), today announced its
investment in Transparent, the vacation rental market intelligence
company, bringing the company’s total funding to $2.8M to date. The
investment will allow Transparent to continue to expand its
commercial team.
The financing aligns with JTV’s investment theme of “reimagining
the accommodation experience” and extends to support the
subsidiary’s broader goal of positioning JetBlue with startup-led
innovation. In recent years the airline has expanded to become a
full-fledged travel brand.
Transparent builds and maintains a platform that aggregates data
on vacation rental market conditions including prices, occupancy
and competition. The startup was founded in 2016 by travel
entrepreneurs Pierre Becerril, Nil Sanz and Drew Patterson with the
mission of helping property managers, real estate investors, online
travel agencies and tourism boards make informed decisions within
the vacation rental space. Since then, the company has aggregated
millions of anonymized reservations and indexed more than 36
million listings globally to help thousands of users make sense of
the rental industry.
“Given JetBlue’s interest in offering short-term rental options
to its customers and the travel industry’s recent demand
volatility, accurate data is imperative to making sound business
decisions. Our investment in Transparent not only provides us with
valuable insight in the short-term rental market, but also a
partnership with one of the leading startups in the vacation
rentals space,” said Ryan Chou, Investment Associate at JetBlue
Technology Ventures.
Transparent estimates that the rental industry will generate
$75B in gross booking value in 2021. The company has built the
authoritative intelligence platform for the industry’s market
participants, allowing them to analyze forward-looking rates &
occupancy, understand demand drivers, monitor competitors and
analyze travelers origins and patterns. Clients and partners
include Amadeus, Booking.com, Four Seasons, Marriott, Hopper, the
Hawaii Tourism Board, the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors
Bureau and hundreds of others institutions globally.
“1 in every 3 beds available to travelers in the US are hosted
in a vacation rental as opposed to a traditional hotel. As
travelers’ appetite for this type of accommodation grows, there is
a need for business intelligence tools to help market participants
make informed decisions on pricing, investment and strategy. During
COVID-19, 25% of bookings occurred in short term rentals,
accelerating a long term shift toward this form of accommodation.
JTV’s interest in our company is a reaffirmation of the vacation
rental industry having moved out of the shadow of the hotel sector
to emerge as a major player in the travel and hospitality ecosystem
in its own right,” said Pierre Becerril, Transparent co-founder and
CEO.
Prior to JTV, Transparent had previously raised funding from
Madrid-based K Fund, NYC-based Highgate Ventures and Paris-based
Kima Ventures.
About JetBlue Technology Ventures
JetBlue Technology Ventures invests in and partners with early
stage startups innovating in the travel, transportation and
hospitality industries. The company prioritizes investments that
advance the seamless customer-centric journey; the accommodation
experience; next-generation aviation operations and enterprise
technology; distribution, loyalty, and revenue management; and
sustainable travel. Founded in 2016, JetBlue Technology Ventures is
a wholly owned subsidiary of JetBlue (NASDAQ: JBLU) and is located
in Silicon Valley, California. For more information, visit
www.JetBlueVentures.com.
About Transparent
Transparent is the global leader in market intelligence for the
short term rental industry. Through a combination of proprietary
data aggregation and data science and aggregation of publicly
available data, Transparent develops insight on market conditions,
such as supply growth, demand patterns, pricing changes, and
property manager activities. This data powers products enable hosts
and property managers, distributors and OTAs, hotels and other
lodging providers, local government bodies, and investors to make
smarter, fact-based decisions in the short term rental industry.
www.seetransparent.com.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210702005047/en/
Media: JetBlue Technology Ventures Sarah Mattina
sarah@jetblueventures.com
JetBlue Corporate Communications Tel: +1 718 709 3089
corpcomm@jetblue.com
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