“Nothing is random” – Travel and Hospitality tech VC forays into big data and predictive analytics

Aug 4, 2022 | News, Press Release

SINGAPORE, 1 AUG 2022 – Velocity Ventures today announced an investment in ZYTLYN, a Switzerland-based startup that uses big data and machine learning to give companies the ability to optimise critical decision-making through predictive insights for travel demand. Its proprietary prediction platform accurately reflects up-to-date where and when travellers want to go and their implied willingness to pay, providing travel and hospitality companies – from airlines to hotels – granular, actionable predictions of demand patterns, for pricing, revenue management, and sales, to name a few.

As the travel and hospitality sector recovers from the pandemic, it is more critical than ever to predict commercial impact and to empower rapid commercial decision making.

Velocity Ventures, a leading VC focused on investing in travel and hospitality technology startups, identified a strong need and demand for predictive analytics that specialises in various aspects of travel i.e., aviation, hospitality and tourism, to help predict changing consumer behaviours and buying patterns.

“The pandemic has changed the way people travel – how and when they plan their trips, where they want to go and how much they want to spend,” says Nicholas Cocks, Managing Partner of Velocity Ventures. “Constantly changing border regulations and factors such as climate change and geo-political shifts are making it harder for companies to accurately forecast demand. We believe that ZYTLYN can be the transformative change to bring control back to systematic and human decision makers.”

By capturing a wide range of relevant signals, ZYTLYN’s platform processes and transforms various disparate signals using machine learning to find up-to-date patterns and correlations and produce predictions. Additionally, contrary to other solutions, clients do not have to replace their existing systems, offering a new generation of contextual prediction of demand – boosting commercial, operational and financial planning, with proven use cases across pricing, revenue management, marketing and sales for airlines, travel agencies, airports, DMOs, destinations, travel retailers, and hotels.

“ZYTLYN’s technology is sophisticated yet lightweight and we foresee broad potential across the travel and hospitality industry. This data-driven approach will allow companies to unlock efficiencies through better asset utilisation, manpower planning and purchasing decision making.” explains Nicholas Cocks, Managing Partner of Velocity Ventures.

The Velocity Value

“We recognise the deep industry knowledge and network that Velocity Ventures has across Southeast Asia, and we are excited to add them to ZYTLYN’s cap table. Velocity Ventures will help us create meaningful partnerships and accelerate our growth”, explains ZYTLYN’s Co-Founder & CEO, Houman Goudarzi.

The addition of ZYTLYN will take Velocity Ventures’ current Portfolio Company count to six, making them the most proactive investor in the travel and hospitality tech space in Southeast Asia. The firm also aims to make ten additional investments in the sector over the next 12 months.