AI-Powered Travel and Investor Insights From a €3.1 Million Funding Round

Meet the types of VCs AI startups encounter when looking for funding.

Author

Peter Juel Jensen
March 03, 2025

Pioneer AI: Checking the Nordic AI Pulse

Welcome to Pioneer AI’s newsletter, The Nordic AI Pulse. We are a Nordics-focused AI investment fund.

We track, share, and analyse information and insights on Nordic-related AI news, deals, and trends.

📚 In This Issue:

  1. AI-Powered Travel and Investor Insights From a €3.1 Million Funding Round

  2. Nordic AI Funding News

  3. Podcast Insights

  4. Upcoming: Nordic AI Events You Shouldn't Miss

The Tryp.com team with André Rangel de Sousa centre in the front row.

AI-Powered Travel and Investor Insights From a €3.1 Million Funding Round

Since Pioneer AI last spoke with Tryp.com, the AI-powered travel planning platform has raised an impressive €3.1 million funding round. We talked to co-founder André Rangel de Sousa about the company's growth plans, what sets it apart in the travel industry, and some of the types of investors AI startup founders are likely to encounter when looking for funding.

Pioneer AI: Congratulations on the funding round. Could you talk us through the process?

André: Sure. A core part was attending Media for Growth in London, an event for media companies looking to partner with consumer startups ready for their next growth stage. We were happy to receive a lot of interest from several major TV channels, including ITV from the UK and RTL2 from Germany, represented by German Media Pool. At the same time, we were speaking to several VCs about funding.

In the end, we decided on a funding deal that included ITV, German media pool, VCs and an angel investor.

Pioneer AI: You have a TV company among the investors. Several media companies acquired travel companies a few years ago, but now they are interested in adding AI companies to the list. What do you see as the reason, and what made you look in that direction for funding?

André: Our next growth stage centres on broadening exposure and user growth.

We want to increase people's knowledge about us. In this context, a partnership with a media company like ITV or RTL2 makes a lot of sense. Basically, you have a media powerhouse in your corner who has experience with what works when it comes to the 27 million homes they reach out to via terrestrial TV. We get a media-savvy partner and the potential to tap into discounts regarding our next growth step.

From the other side of the table, travel solutions may offer synergies. For example, there may be an inspirational travel show where a solution like ours allows readers or viewers to go online and arrange their visits to the location.

Pioneer AI: What has been the process from a technical side?

André: From the backend, the focus has been on ensuring that we have the scalability and size needed to handle the hopeful increase in customers in the coming months as we scale our media presence and advertising.

Pioneer AI: What are the differences between how you implement AI and how companies like Booking and Expedia have tried to release "Apps" through OpenAI?

André: Using ChatGPT to generate travel recommendations doesn’t work for most people because good travel recommendations need to be price aware – which is one reason why purely LLM-based travel recommendations and booking solutions on ChatGPT make little sense for most users.

In short, you can’t just feed a big travel site engine something like the unique database of 80 million travel options we work with and expect it to find what is best for you.

Instead, you need custom algorithms that understand what users want and AI that can continuously learn to better serve your needs as a traveller based on your preferences.

Our moats in the travel space include unique algorithms and database that enable you to assemble the perfect travel package.

Another is that our AI builds a better understanding of what makes a trip a good one for you the more you interact with it.

Many of the large travel sites are deploying slightly different AI and machine learning that is focused on what people are searching for and clicking on, but the systems do not work in an open, dynamic environment like the one we offer, and I think that is a core difference.

Pioneer AI: What has been your experience interacting with VCs throughout the funding process? And what are some things you, as an AI founder, have learned along the way?

André: One is about a couple of different types of VCs you are likely to meet.

One type is metrics-focused. They will often think in terms of MRR, ARR and revenue multipliers. This generally applies to many European VC investors.

The other is the curious investor. They also have an eye on your company’s financial performance metrics.

However, they are as interested in your big picture as your financial performance, conversion rates, and user acquisition. This type will ask many questions about why you will be disruptive and your end goal.

AI startups are particularly well positioned for longer-term success if they work with the second type of investor.

My background is in the technical field, so I have learned financial projecting and reporting over time. We use forecasts of three scenarios with logistic regressions that inform us and our investors about how things are going.

However, as students, we also learned to include financial aspects in our projects.

That might be an advantage that AI founders in the Nordics who come out of the region's technical universities can leverage to engage investors in relevant ways.

What do you think? Any comments or thoughts? Let us know via email or contact us on the Pioneer AI LinkedIn page here. 

🚀AI Funding News🚀

Select Nordic AI-related deals, investments, acquisitions and insights. 

Congratulations to all of the founders and teams!

Pioneer AI’s top Nordic AI funding insights and highlights:

1: No code no longer a problem
Stockholm-based AI startup Lovable has raised €14.3 million in a pre-Series A funding round.

Lovable offers a no-code platform that enables users to build software solutions through natural conversation—eliminating the need for coding expertise. €16.2 million in annual recurring revenue and 30,000 paying customers within just three months shows just how big the potential is for AI-driven software development.

Lovable and similar AI solutions democratise software creation, enabling individuals and small teams to launch tech products without the traditional need for deep programming skills.

As company CEO Anton Osika has highlighted, fewer than 1% of people worldwide can code, making traditional software development a bottleneck for innovation.

AI-driven platforms help break down these barriers, allowing entrepreneurs, creators, and businesses to transform ideas into functional products with unprecedented speed and efficiency.

2: Solving off-the-field issues and challenges with AI
Stockholm-based SponsWatch is the latest in a string of Nordic-based AI sports companies to secure funding. This time, the focus is on off-the-field challenges.

Sponswatch’s AI-powered sponsorship analytics platform provides a way to measure the increasingly complex sponsorship and brand impact through AI and machine learning that tracks brand exposure across TV, social media, podcasts, and more.

Traditional sponsorship and brand valuation methods often rely on outdated, manual models that struggle to accurately gauge audience engagement across the likes of streaming services and social media platforms.

The challenges and changes to the media landscape provide fertile ground for AI-driven analytics like SponsWatch’s solution.

🎧Listen To🎧

Nordic AI news and analysis for your ears.

  • In Good Company - The Norwegian Wealth Fund’s podcast sits down with David Ricks, CEO of Eli Lilly, for a conversation that covers AI in the pharma space.

  • AI Denmark [DK] - Examines the impact and potential of small and efficient generative language models that are trained to solve specific tasks. 

  • AI-podden [SE] - Galina Esther Shubina, Senior Director of AI Strategy at King, reveals how the game maker uses AI to improve gameplay and development.

📅Training, Meetups & Conferences📅

📅Training, Meetups & Conferences📅

Conferences

  • March 4: BreakIT AI.Day: Meeting where Sweden's leading AI entrepreneurs and decision-makers explore what's waiting around the corner for anyone who wants to implement AI in their businesses and build companies. [Stockholm, Sweden]

  • March 6: Artificial Intelligence and Urban Planning: Scientific conference on how artificial intelligence can shape future cities and urban planning. [Copenhagen, Denmark]

  • March 12: AI Marketing Conference: A conference filled with concrete strategies and implementable tips from leading experts in AI-driven marketing. [Copenhagen, Denmark]

  • March 17-20: IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence: Research conference focused on sharing research concepts and results and fostering an environment for future collaborations. [Tromsø, Norway]

  • March 19-20: OffDig 2025: A conference focused on digitisation, including the use of AI, in public organisations. [Aarhus, Denmark]

  • April 3: Applied AI Nordics 2025: Explore real-world case studies, results and learnings from the business implementation of AI across industries. [Copenhagen, Denmark]

  • April 11: Gothenburg AI Alliance Conference: One-day conference exploring various aspects of AI implementation. [Gothenburg, Sweden]

  • April 23-24: Nordic AI in Media Summit: Explore the cutting edge of AI in media through compelling case studies from leading Nordic news publishers and global experts. [Copenhagen, Denmark]

  • April 28: AI & Data Day: Insights into how organizations can realize AI's potential and create value in a world where data and technology are constantly evolving.

  • May 7-8: Data Innovation Summit: Large conference for exploring ways to accelerate AI-driven transformation throughout companies, industries and public organisations. [Stockholm, Sweden]

  • May 12-14: AI and Machine Learning for Healthcare: Research conference exploring advances in deep learning and neural networks for the development of intelligent healthcare systems. [Copenhagen, Denmark]

  • May 13-15: International Congress on Industrial AI and eMaintenance: Congress focused on industrial artificial intelligence, or IAI. [Luleå, Sweden]

  • May 14-15: Stockholm Tech Show: One of the Nordic region’s largest events and meeting places for professionals involved in new technologies, including AI. [Stockholm, Sweden]

  • May 15: Data Centres Denmark: Industry conference that includes looks at how AI is driving the exponential growth in the data centre industry. [Copenhagen, Denmark]

  • May 15-16: International Conference on AI and Soft Computing: Scientists, researchers, and research scholars come together to exchange and share experiences and research results regarding AI and soft computing. [Copenhagen, Denmark]

  • May 20: Driving AI 2025: AI case studies, learn about the models and get professional tricks, whether you're an AI professional or just curious. [Copenhagen, Denmark]

  • May 21: AI in Healthcare Conference: Conference on AI's power to transform patient care through swift, accurate data processing and task automation. [Copenhagen, Denmark]

  • May 22: AI Compute Summit: Examines the future of AI computing, addressing the challenges of building scalable, sustainable systems. [Copenhagen, Denmark]

  • June 2-5: AI+ 2025: The latest AI updates, expert presentations, panel discussions, demonstrations, and networking events. [Halden, Norway]

  • June 2-3: NORA Annual Conference: An annual event for the Norwegian AI research community where participants can interact and share research, ideas, and new perspectives. [Oslo, Norway]

  • June 11: Scandinavian Creative AI Summit: Newest in an event series designed to showcase how professionals in the creative industries embrace the power of generative AI. [Copenhagen, Denmark]

  • June 12-13: DevSum 2025: One of Sweden’s most prominent tech conferences, including many workshops and speakers focused on AI. [Stockhold, Sweden]

Meetups

Do you know of an event, meetup, or similar event that you think should be on the list? Let us know!

Got an AI story or insight from the Nordics? Share it with us!

Reply to this email or connect on LinkedIn.

Until next time,

Pioneer Venture AI,