In what will go down as the most competitive head-to-head battle in EyeforTravel Startup Awards history, Dazzle a UK startup, edged out Bizly in the final seconds of voting to win 51% to 49%. Dazzle, is an AI powered, voice activated chatbot and hotel concierge. Runner-up Bizly, is a meeting platform for businesses to search and book event space at hotels.
Tim Gunstone, CEO EyeforTravel, Ron Shah, CEO Bizly, Charles Cadbury, CCO Dazzle and Tim Hentschel, CEO HotelPlanner
A special thanks to Tim Henschel, CEO of HotelPlanner, for sponsoring the Startup Awards, Brian Harniman with Brand New Matter, for coaching the 10 startups on their presentations and the following judges: Ganesh Mani, PHD MBDA Adjunct Faculty, Carnegie Mellon Entrepreneur & Investment Manager TravelWits.com, Brian Harniman, Managing Director, Brand New Matter, Matt Zito, Managing Partner, Travel Startups Incubator, Tim Hentschel, CEO, HotelPlanner.com, Jeena James, Global Head for Travel & Local, Apps, Google Play, Kurien Jacob, Principal, Highgate Ventures, Utpal Kaul, Head of New Product Incubation, Carlson Wagonlit Travel, Christina Heggie, Venture Capitalist, JetBlue Ventures, Nathan Bobbin, Senior Director Product Innovation, Travelport.
Madhu Jain, Yappes and Nicole & Matt Zito, Travel Startups Incubator
10 startups gave pitches to the judges, including Yappes, a travel API marketplace and discovery platform helping travel companies discover, license and consume API’s. Madhu Jain and Yappes came all the way from India to attend the EyeforTravel conference. Yappes received multiple verbal commitments from travel companies at the conference to distribute their APIs on the Yappes platform. Yappes is a TSI portfolio company. The API platform currently has 60 API providers and 20 API consumers with thousands of transactions running through the platform.