The Greek tourism startup Welcome Pickups, a company that reshapes and modernizes the travel industry, has just announced their latest investment of 1.65 million euros, emeastartups reported. Reportedly, the investment is lead by the venture capital VentureFriends, supported by Openfund and Melih Odemis.
The startup that has 150 hotel and apartment partners in 9 cities worldwide and has welcomed 90.000 guests so far, will use the latest funding to increase their presence globally – with a short-term vision – to expand to 40 cities and to serve 1 million travelers by the end of next (2018) year.
“The special model of Welcome Pickups has created a new travel category that covers all needs in a destination other than airline tickets and accommodation”, says Alexandros Trimis , CEO and co-founder of Welcome Pickups.
“We are very excited to be the world’s first to offer this service and we received such a positive response from hundreds of thousands of travelers. We believe that this funding will further enhance our growth and cover additional destinations”.
According to the Venture Friends partner Apostolos Apostolakis, this company will soon create a strong global travel name.
“At VentureFriends, we are very excited to support Welcome Pickups to achieve its ambitious goals and to establish itself globally. In just two years, the talented team has developed rapidly and managed to expand to 5 countries and 11 destinations, with the majority of revenue coming from outside Greece. We firmly believe that Welcome will successfully face the next challenge to operate in 40 destinations by the end of 2018, creating a strong global travel name.“
Founded in 2015 in Athens, Welcome Pickups is reshaping the travel industry. The company raises the values in the traveling department and goes beyond booking of an airplane tickets and accommodation – it offers all the services a traveler needs from an airport pickups to a 24/7 online service for all the questions that might arise when abroad.
Venture Friends on the other hand, are entrepreneurial investors who support startups and help ideas become disruptive startups and eventually sustainable businesses. Their team has a strong financial, marketing & business background coming from extensive startup experience.
For VentureFriend and Melih Odemis this is their third investment in this Greek startup. As for the Openfund, this company supports Welcome Pickups from their very beginning, by being their first investor in April 2015 supporting the team with 150.000 euros.
