[Crowdfunding] LuckyTrip 🌎

LuckyTrip are about to hit CrowdCube! For those of you that haven’t used it before, it’s an AI powered travel app that gives you unique trip ideas (and lets you book them) based on a range of parameters & filters. I use it all the time for travel inspiration, it’s a great little app and it’s been really awesome to see their continuous improvement through various integrations with partners like SkyScanner, Booking.com & EasyJet - it was also awarded App Store ‘Best of the Year’ by Apple. :star2:

It’s in private mode at the moment but I will update this post with the link when it goes public - for now here is the video with details of the pitch.

Edit: public listing here.

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Good to see a startup investing into content.

I’ve downloaded the app now, too!

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Are you using the app, @tommy? If you do, any thoughts?

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This looks interesting. Thank you for sharing this. I’m going to download the app and take a look :slight_smile:

Yes! I use it quite a lot, it’s a really neat little app with a nice UI, simple to use but a really cool idea focused around 3 key points

  1. Location, it gives you some really cool places that you wouldn’t usually think of
  2. Accommodation, uses booking.com integration to show you a few of the highest rated options in your budget
  3. Something to do, this is really neat as even if you’ve maxed out your budget on the flights and hotel - it will still recommend free things for you to do during your stay.

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As per their email

For 10 days we’re giving our community exclusive access to become a LuckyTrip investor in our first ever crowdfunding campaign with a minimum investment of just £10. There’s limited space - we haven’t announced this publicly to give our community the chance to get involved first.

It’s 76% funded already!

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Interesting idea to reduce the noise of comparison sites down to something more straightforward but I want to know who the booking is with? Skyscanner? Booking.com? Or LuckyTrip?

Seems like LuckyTrip get referral fees for providing qualified leads, which is fine, but then everything is else is manged through those providers. Personally I wouldn’t touch Booking.com but that’s my personal experience coming into play.

Have a lot of doubt in the unique ideas and experiences too for what I hope are quite obvious reasons.

Considering you can invest from as little as £10, maybe it’s worth a punt but I’m struggling to see a lot of value here that couldn’t be easily replicated elsewhere. Happy for someone to prove me wrong.

Just checked out their pitch.
They are looking for £200k.

When will campaign be open to others, and what is pre-money valuation?

There is data on previous funding rounds on crunchbase
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/luckytrip#section-overview

Yeah I found out about them 3/4 years ago when I worked in Travel Tech. They show destinations at random and you have to book through booking.com and I think Skyscanner for flights. So they get an affiliate fee.

It seemed cool as a discovery app, but not a business to really invest in personally - but a lot may have changed in 3 years.

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I stumbled across this pitch today and it looks to have some legs. I have downloaded the app and it is a pretty slick experience. I am awaiting access to their pitch documents, but initial thoughts are positive.

LuckyTrip raising £200,000 investment on Crowdcube. Capital At Risk.

Has anyone else looked into this pitch or invested?

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Apologies @Freetrade_Team1 I feel like I should walk through the city and receive the shame! I searched for Lucky Trip (with space)!

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No worries :slight_smile:

I think you should still do the walk of shame through Kings Landing… Unbelievable!

image https://media2.giphy.com/media/vX9WcCiWwUF7G/giphy.gif?cid=19f5b51a5ce5af0e3859324b775cc1cb&rid=giphy.gif

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I tried to find the gif…apparently I couldn’t do that right either! Double shame!

I’ve been a fan of LuckyTrip for a while now. :earth_asia:

Having previously worked at Skyscanner, I know first hand that the margins are very low on flights, and that accommodation is kind of dominated by big players (Booking, Hotels, Airbnb). These giants built their businesses on strong SEO foundations and have grown huge volumes of direct inventory.

LuckyTrip isn’t going to be able to compete in the same way. So, they’ve sensibly gone app only, and they’ve got a genuinely unique take on travel content. No clichéd tropical beaches here. :beach_umbrella: :x:

Yes, they are using those big platforms to supply their travel options (kind of essential!) but I think they’re executing really well on developing their own audience. Great to see their expansion into Germany, and more markets will be key to scaling out to a larger millennial audience. Experiences could also be a potential area for growth though I’m not sure how much revenue that’s driving for Airbnb, for example. Partnerships with bigger companies, e.g. airlines will definitely be important, and unsurprisingly they’ve been an acquisition target already.

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Came across this on CC a few days back and it certainly looks an interesting/different take on travel.

I like the fact that they’re unashamedly going after a particular audience too.

They’ve had a pretty quick raise by the looks of it - over 200% funded in just over 4 days

Borrowing money to invest :moneybag: It has obviously struck a chord with some. It does seem an interesting pitch and I agree with @Freetrade_Team that the app has a lot of potential.

Could this be the one that got away?! :running_man:

Am I the only one who finds that deeply troubling? Of course it depends on how much and where from but :grimacing:

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No, that’s definitely over the top. I (personally) don’t think people should have more than 5-10% of their portfolio be crowdfunded/startup stocks, this dude is way overdoing it by leveraging capital for a crowdfund. Either that, or it’s fake/overblown…

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