Swiipr has raised £6 million.
The travel paytech company, which aims to transform the air industry’s disruption payment systems, gleaned the funding from its Series A round led by Octopus Ventures with input from TX Ventures and Solano Partners. The new funding is meant to help the company as it seeks to drive growth, particularly in the areas of research and development, artificial intelligence, data analytics and strategy, among others.
“Thanks to Octopus, our Series A capital will enable us to enhance our solutions even further and accelerate our growth helping us to achieve our vision of eliminating compensation friction points wherever they exist,” said Ian Clowes, co-founder and chairman of Swiipr, in a blog post published by the company.
Swiipr, which launched in 2020, seeks to enable airlines to digitize flight disruption payments to enhance the passenger experience and drive cost efficiency. Swiipr is used by 26 airlines in 70 countries.
The company’s integrated digital platform, which includes virtual and physical pre-paid compensation cards, along with a mobile app, offers tools for airlines to ease pain points for airlines themselves and for passengers.
“Legacy compensation systems are unfit for purpose. Not only do they cost an airline billions of dollars every year but they also exacerbate disruption and stress,” said Tara Spielhagen, co-founder and CEO of Swiipr. “It doesn’t need to be this way in a digital age, and we are proud to have developed a new solution that solves so many pain points. Our airline partners and their customers are already reaping the benefits.”
Subscribe to our newsletter below
On the passenger side, Swiipr’s Swiipr Compensation Card allows for airlines to give passengers funds at the time of disruption – when they are denied boarding or when luggage is lost, for example. The Swiipr Welfare Card also allows for airlines to instantly give out food and beverage compensation for delayed flights.
And on the airline side, benefits are meant to include reduced fraud and processing time, increased loyalty and consumer retail insights. Airlines can also implement the brand’s card products for operational use for staff and crew.
“We’ve been impressed by the power of Swiipr’s offering to fundamentally transform compensation payments, delivering the scale and efficiency of modern payments to the airline industry while significantly improving the travel experience for their customers,” said Tosin Agbabiaka, principal at Octopus Ventures.
Agbabiaka continued: “Swiipr’s founders bring the depth of expertise in both the payments and travel industries necessary to tackle the airline compensation challenge. This complimentary skillset, and the effectiveness of its solution, have enabled Swiipr to already gain strong traction with major global carriers this early in its development.”