Ortharize, the award-winning business travel platform, announces today that it has raised £457,899.38 in its latest investment round.
The initial target for the raise was £300,000, but due to high interest in the offering, attracted more than £150,000 in additional funding, bringing the total amount raised to just under £1mn from both of Ortharize’s investment rounds.
The investment is led by the Development Bank of Wales which supported Ortharize in their initial round back in March 2020. The round was finished on Crowdcube, a crowdfunding provider that attracted over 100 micro investors.
The funding will support Ortharize’s goal of growing the company, attracting new clients and realising our vision of making business travel better worldwide. Funds will be used to expand commercial activities and continue to improve the self-service business travel booking platform. Ortharize will continue to help organisations to lower the administrative burden and cost of travel through its award-winning platform and rewards functionality. Ortharize rewards staff for being price-savvy, saving companies time and money, and enabling them to calculate their carbon footprint.
Gary Wardrope, CEO and Co-Founder, said:
“We are thrilled to have overfunded our investment round and to have raised more than we set out to. This additional funding will help us fuel our commercial expansion and take Ortharize to the next level.
“We’ve come a long way from our first round as COVID-19 began- we’ve weathered one of the most difficult periods ever for the travel industry and come out the other side with a fantastic platform in operation and over two dozen clients trusting us with their business travel requirements.
“With this funding, we’ll be able to put our sales and marketing plans into action and attract even more businesses to start using Ortharize.”
With its free-to-use platform that generates revenue from hotels, airlines, and service providers via commissions and marked-up net fares, Ortharize is set to revolutionise the business travel industry, which is forecasted to grow to $1.5 trillion by 2025.
Chris Flynn, Director of Operations and Co-Founder, said:
“Ortharize is well positioned to win business from other travel management companies who aren’t investing as much as we are into the future of business travel.
“Over the last year, we’ve introduced a huge number of features, many suggested and built alongside our clients, to improve financial reconciliation, reduce fees and lower travel spend, as well as initiatives to enhance employee safety and business intelligence reporting.
“As former business travellers, we know the problems that business travellers and travel managers are facing and we’re solving them. More and more clients are joining Ortharize each month, which I think is testament to our client-focussed approach.”
Ortharize's innovative platform offers a range of features designed to simplify and streamline the business travel booking process, including real-time flight and hotel availability, travel approvals and reporting, through a user-friendly website and mobile application. The platform also incentivizes greener travel, enabling companies to measure and offset their carbon footprint.
