Berlin-based multi-mode travel planner platform GoEuro has closed a $27 million Series A funding round led by New Enterprise Associates, seven months on from topping up its seed funding with another multimillion-dollar cash injection. The new funding will be specifically targeted at market expansion and ramping up GoEuro’s rate of growth.
As well as new investor NEA, all three of GoEuro’s existing VCs participated in the round: namely Battery Ventures, HPV and Lakestar. GoEuro raised a $4 million seed round back in March 2013 to build its vision of a multi-modal travel platform for planning longer distance journeys in Europe.
GoEuro’s platform can be described as a meta search engine focused on European transport options. Users enter their start point and desired destination and the system crunches possible routes, considering factors such as speed and price, and presenting a series of options covering different transport modes and spanning the entire journey.
GoEuro currently operates in seven countries in Europe: its launch markets of Germany and the UK, plus Spain, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg — which means that it can only offer full bus, rail and air options for those markets. It does not currently support ticket booking within the platform but that is a feature the startup aims to add in future.
One likely candidate to be added to its market coverage footprint now that it’s flush with Series A cash is France, which plays a key bridging role in European travel geography, connecting land journeys from the U.K. (via the channel tunnel/ferry) on to many key destinations in central Europe.
In terms of travel terminals, GoEuro says it now covers 20,510 railway stations, 10,011 bus stations and 207 airports. That’s up from 12,900 rail, 8,500 bus (coach) stations and 150 airports back in January.
Competitors in the multi-modal travel planning space include the likes of fromAtoB, Waymate and Wanderio. The size of the market is likely to support multiple competitors — although GoEuro is evidently gunning to be one of the biggest in the space.
