Wanderfly Raises $1 Million For Social Travel Recommendation Engine

Leena Rao

Leena Rao is currently a Senior Editor for TechCrunch. She recently finished graduate school at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007, she helped lead Congresswoman Carloyn Maloney’s community outreach and relations efforts in New York City. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where she was... → Learn More

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

Wanderfly, an intelligent travel recommendation search engine, has raised $1 million in new funding from Charles River Ventures, Jason Calacanis, StartupAngel, James Bailey, Roger Dickey and other angel investors.

Wanderfly’s search engine allows you to enter a number of parameters, such as date, where you are traveling from, budget per person, areas of interest (food, luxury, family, outdoors, etc.) and specific destination and will then recommend destinations that match your preferences. The site will present you with an actual geographic destination, offer suggested flights, and hotels and suggest sample activities and restaurants.

Beyond glossy photos and an easy-to-use UI, what makes Wanderfly compelling is that it adds a more personalized experience to booking travel. And it streamlines activity planning into developing an itinerary for a trip or vacation.

And since its launch last October, Wanderfly has served more than a half million trips to users in nearly 200 countries. Wanderfly has also signed partnerships with Hotels.com to power its hotel search; Kayak to suggest airfare options, Quintessentially to offer custom concierge packages; and Business Traveler magazine to augment content. The startup is also planning to partner with Jetsetter to supplement hotel offerings with luxury vacations.

Wanderfly says that the new funding will be used towards adding more social functionality to personalize the online travel experience, forming additional strategic partnerships and syndicating Wanderfly’s technology on partner sites.

Company: Wanderfly
Website: wanderfly.com
Launch Date: August 2009
Funding: $1.4M

Wanderfly is the best place to discover and share personalized travel recommendations. Our premise is simple: everyone travels differently, so we all need different recommendations. We’re here to make travel planning more personal, simple, fun, human and inspiring. Wanderfly is venture-backed by notable VCs and angel investors, including Charles River Ventures, MentorTech Ventures, Jason Calacanis, Dave Morin and Roger Dickey, and supported by a distinguished advisors, including John Gerzema, Kevin Farnham, Khoi Vinh, Ravi Simhambhatla and Eric Bradlow.

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