Hello again! Seth Borko, head of Skift Research here. A little housekeeping before we get started. Our monthly subscriber-only call is coming up next week, so if you are a Research subscriber, please sign up here.

And for this month’s Data Pulse, let’s take a deep dive into the work of travel venture capital. 

This is always an exciting topic since the startups of yore are the giant incumbents of today. Tracking venture capital doesn’t just measure investor excitement for travel; it also serves as a preview into the future of our industry.

The good news is that travel venture capital is gaining momentum, even if we're still a long way from the highs of 2019. That’s according to the latest refresh of our proprietary travel venture capital database to include full-year 2025 and the first quarter of 2026. Our database, which is powered by Crunchbase, but refined, maintained, and analyzed by Skift Research, now covers nearly 6,000 travel venture deals representing $60 billion of capital deployed over nearly 20 years.

Travel startups raised $3.4 billion of venture capital in 2025, the final numbers show, up by 11% from 2024 and marking two consecutive years of growth off the 2023 trough. There is a clear trend of building momentum and total funding is up 42% from that low. However, we are still well below the $6-8 billion of annual travel capital raised during the highs of the 2018–2021 cycle.

A Quick Q1 2026 Update

So far this year travel startups have raised nearly $760 million of venture capital through the first quarter of 2026. The standout deal was Mews’ $300 million Series D financing. 

That’s pacing down -20% year-on-year, but we are facing a tough comparable as Q1 2025 saw multiple major late-stage financings. There is still plenty of time left in 2026 for venture capital activity to recover, although it may turn into a year of profit-taking as several mature startups, including Klook, GetYoutGuide, and OYO, are due for a 2026 IPO.

Fewer Deals, Bigger Checks

Back to the final 2025 data: deal count fell to 231 transactions, and as a result, average round size rose to $14.9 million. This is both the lowest deal count and largest round size we have seen in many years (nb: This excludes deals with no announced funding size. This analysis only tracks VC rounds with a matching fundraising amount).

This is the pattern we've been watching build for a couple of years now. Investors are still writing checks, but fewer of them, and to a narrower list of companies. This reflects a pivot toward later-stage startups. Late-stage rounds represented $2.4 billion of funding in 2025, up 24%. Meanwhile, early-stage rounds were roughly flat, while cash deployed to seed and pre-seed rounds both fell. 

In fact, the 2025 growth in travel VC was almost entirely a late-stage phenomenon. The top of the startup funnel, which fuel the next generation of travel companies, have received comparatively little capital. This is cause for worry because if today’s cohorts of seed and early-stage travel startups remain lightly funded, then the pipeline of mature travel startups in 2030 will be thinner, too.

What This Means for You

If you're a corporate travel executive: The competitive threats to your business are more likely to come from well-capitalized scale-ups with real traction: Mews, Canary, Klook, and Oyo. They have hundreds of millions of dollars of runway, enterprise customers, and clear paths to an IPO. 

If you're a startup founder: Raising early-stage capital in this environment will be hard. But there’s good news as well. There’s less competition and plenty of AI white space to be tapped.

If you're a venture capitalist: Late-stage is crowded and pricey. Early-stage is cheap, but lonely. The growth in Asia-Pacific and MENA venture activity suggests the best travel deals of the next cycle may not be in Silicon Valley. Get on a plane.

The Bottom Line

2025 was the second consecutive year of growth for travel venture capital — a meaningful continuation of growth in travel startups, even if the path back to the highs of 2019 remains long. The rebound is still narrow and concentrated in late-stage rounds and a small group of scale-ups. But the doors are widening and, especially with the AI revolution happening as we speak, travel investments made today will shape our future a decade from now. 

The real test is still to come in 2026. Will the recovery of the past years broaden out to earlier stages? Will travel unicorns like Klook, GetYourGuide, and OYO have successful IPOs? We'll be watching.

As always, don't be a stranger. What are you seeing in the travel VC market that the headline numbers miss? Drop me a note — [email protected].