Pivots, pandemic, and platform-building: TourRadar's wild ride
Welcome back to Scaling at Speed.
With summer fast approaching, chances are you’ve already started daydreaming about your next getaway. So we figured, why not talk to someone who builds those dreams for a living?
This month, we caught up with Travis Pittman, co-founder and CEO of TourRadar, the platform for booking multi-day adventures around the world. Travis takes us through the epic adventure of scaling his global travel business, from the highs and lows to some surprising turns.
From staring down a global pandemic to emerging stronger on the other side, his story is a reminder that resilience isn't just a buzzword — it's a vital survival skill.
Keep scrolling to dive into the full interview, learn why PR is more important than ever in scaling your company, find out where you can catch our investors this month, and more.
An excerpt from Travis's interview 👇
By 2020, TourRadar had scaled into a significant global player, having raised funds from the CEO of Expedia, Silicon Valley fund TCV, and, of course, Speedinvest. Then COVID-19 hit.
“The travel industry collapsed overnight,” Travis said. “We had just done a big funding round, and suddenly our entire market disappeared. Our bookings went to zero.”
The company found itself in uncharted territory. “We had tens of millions of euros in bookings out in the world that just got cancelled overnight. We had to refund customers, and then also return the commission on top of that. We literally had negative revenue.”
Survival meant leaning into resilience and trust. “We refunded everyone. No questions asked. That hurt, but it was the right thing to do. And it paid off in customer trust later.”
Culture, Travis said, was critical. “People talk about culture in the good times, but it’s the loyalty and trust in each other that really pulls you through the shit times.”
How important is PR in scaling your business?
In the age of AI search and LLMs, your company's credibility isn't just earned – it's indexed.
AI models like ChatGPT and Perplexity perform a "credibility search," valuing mentions in reputable media to determine trustworthiness and recommend companies. If prioritized, strong, consistent, and strategic media coverage can help build your "AI recommendation power" and company even faster — driving brand awareness, customer acquisition, top talent, follow-on investment, and more.
Learn how you can navigate the evolving media landscape and implement best practices to secure PR coverage on our blog.
Growth Agenda
Our portfolio companies, Primer, Planqc, and Dronamics, make Lazard's T100 European Growth Index for 2025.
- London-based fintech, Primer, first backed by Speedinvest in 2020, has been redefining payments infrastructure through its API.
- Planqc is building out one of Germany's largest quantum computers. The Munich-based spinout of the Max Planck Institute was backed by Speedinvest in 2022.
- Dronamics is the world's first cargo drone airline. Based in Bulgaria and first backed by Speedinvest in 2015, the team is re-inventing the future of cargo shipping through drones.
Upcoming Events: Will we see you there?
Catch the Speedinvest team attending & speaking at leading conferences and exclusive events across EMEA. We would love to meet you!
- HLTH Europe – [June 16-19, Amsterdam]: Andrea Zitna, Estelle Botbol, Daria Gherghelas, and Hendrik Steenfadt from our Health & Bio team will be on stage and hosting & attending side events throughout Europe's largest conference focused on the healthcare industry.
- The Next Web Conference – [June 19-20, Amsterdam]: Our Marketplaces & Consumer investment team lead, Partner, and proud Dutchman, Jeroen Arts, will be in Amsterdam to meet the best and brightest startups building in his sector.
👉 Check out future events we'll be attending on our blog.
From the Investors' Desk
From deep sector expertise to our take on the future of tech and venture capital in Europe, here are some of our recent musings from social media.
Our GP, Andreas Schwarzenbrunner, comments on the recent announcement that Blackstone is set to invest $500 billion in Europe, highlighting the level of urgency now apparent in Europe to catch up. The continent has the talent and the tech, now it's time to spin the flywheel.
Principal Namratha Kothapalli shares key takeaways from her recent panel discussion at Arctic 15 on AI compute. Given that energy and infrastructure are already tight, Namratha suggests that Europe needs to build abundant, cheap, and clean energy foundations first, not just data centers, to help improve this bottleneck.
👉 What else we're reading:
Inside the collapse of Microsoft-backed UK tech unicorn Builder.ai - Financial Times
Europe’s Mistral benefits from search for artificial intelligence alternatives - Financial Times
Thanks for reading — see you next month,
Have feedback, suggestions, or topics you'd like us to dive into? Email us at press@speedinvest.com.