PhocusWire has tracked the most sensible traders in journey for the previous couple of years to grasp the place
they see alternative and are keen to put their bets.
This annual characteristic is a part of our wider protection of the startup ecosystem, which additionally comprises our choice of the 25 journey startups poised to face out within the coming 12 months—referred to as our Scorching 25 Shuttle Tech Startups record—revealed each and every November.
Thus far, PhocusWire has identified 175 corporations throughout the Scorching 25 collection, which dates again to 2018. Jointly, the ones startups have raised greater than $3.3 billion greenbacks, in line with Phocuswright’s Shuttle Startups Interactive Database.
Talent to draw funding isn’t the one measure of the well being of the journey startup sector, however it has proved to be a significant indicator for an trade this is impacted via international occasions—from geopolitical conflicts and financial instability, to local weather exchange and IT meltdowns.
Around the wider journey startup panorama, Phocuswright has tracked just about 8,000 corporations that experience won greater than $230 billion in investment from greater than 11,000 rounds since 2005.
Whilst the information displays that journey tech investment totaled $5.8 billion in 2024, a slight build up from $5.3 billion in 2023, it’s on target to say no once more this 12 months. Q1 2025 investment and M&A bogged down, with investments totaling below $1 billion. Via the tip of Would possibly, that determine edged as much as $1.1 billion.
The selection of rounds hit an all time low in 2024, even though some within the funding group have mentioned the image may well be artificially skewed. Cara Whitehill, vp of Thayer Funding Companions and founding father of Liberate Advisors, mentioned past due final 12 months that it’s imaginable fewer offers are being publicly reported.
Many had been pinning their hopes on larger funding within the sector as a result of better traders similar to Accel and Basic Catalyst had raised new finances—however this does not appear to have materialized but.
Then again, there were some brilliant spots, together with Hostaway’s $365 million, Flyr’s Sequence D spherical of $295 million led via WestCap, TravelPerk’s Sequence E of $200 million and Klook’s $100 million.
Best journey tech traders 2025
To convey extra transparency to journey traders’ process and methods, PhocusWire first revealed a listing of the most sensible traders in journey era in 2023.
The record is in line with research via Mike Coletta, Phocuswright senior supervisor of study and innovation, and Stan Pawlow, Phocuswright information analyst.
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Very similar to final 12 months, the research highlights the traders which are maximum lively or are contributing essentially the most non-debt investment to the ecosystem. Because the particular quantities of contributions via each and every investor in each and every investment spherical is typically no longer publicly
to be had, the research zeroes in on those that invested in no less than 3 journey corporations between Would possibly 2024 and Would possibly 2025 and/or have a particular focal point on journey and said plans to speculate extra.
In line with the ones standards, following is the record of most sensible journey tech traders and a pattern of the corporations they’ve invested in right through the desired period of time, with hyperlinks to our protection of the startups’ investment as appropriate.
“For the second one 12 months in a row, Thayer and Antler most sensible our record. It is nice to peer their dedication to journey dangle company within the face of technological, monetary and financial uncertainty, However as I mentioned once we began this initiative in 2023, the majority of traders make rare investments in journey startups. Thus, it is herbal to peer numerous rotation. But over the long run, we do see lots of the similar names bobbing up, similar to Y-Combinator, Highgate Ventures and Kinnevik,” Coletta mentioned.
“One thing more to notice: There appear to be extra bridge and secondary rounds taking place at the moment, which steadily don’t seem to be introduced publicly, so that they may well be lacking from our information.”
Investor insights
PhocusWire additionally reached out to lots of the journey startup traders at the record to get their sentiment at the panorama, how they paintings with their portfolio corporations, hype round synthetic intelligence (AI) and outlook for investment.
Some responses had been edited for readability and brevity.
How has the best way you’re employed with portfolio corporations modified over the last 5 years?
Gaurav Tuli, spouse at F-High Capital: So much has took place in 5 years. We’ve swung from euphoric highs to historical lows and again, however the journey sector proved one thing many hadn’t but internalized: It’s extremely resilient,
and international call for is insatiable over the long run. Now that the belief has sunk in, the trade’s mindset has shifted. We’ve long past from taking part in protection to scaling with ambition. With a more potent VC marketplace and billion-dollar journey tech corporations
now scaling impulsively, founders and forums can intention upper. Our position nowadays is to push expansive considering, open doorways to international leaders throughout and past journey, toughen M&A technique and construct category-defining corporations.
Sarah Finegan, affiliate spouse, Antler: As Antler has grown, each within the U.Okay. and globally, our portfolio has expanded considerably, this means that we’ve needed to construct extra scalable, structured tactics to toughen founders. That mentioned, we
stay very hands-on. We act as sparring companions from the earliest phases, serving to founders pressure-test concepts, sharpen execution and transfer sooner. It’s a mixture of breadth and intensity: structured toughen at scale, mixed with the deep, hands-on
toughen founders want within the early days.
Cara Whitehill, vp of Thayer Funding Companions: We’ve got expanded our staff to convey on extra working experience throughout each journey tech and hospitality, which is already paying dividends for our portfolio corporations. Having
staff contributors who’ve been there, accomplished that on the subject of enlargement and go-to-market technique is proving a fantastic useful resource for our portfolio groups and a differentiator for startups searching for a real value-add capital spouse.
Billy Fox, investor at Energetic Companions: 4 years in the past, Energetic introduced an early-stage fund along our enlargement fund, which has introduced in a community of greater than 200 LPs, nearly all of that have operated, instructed or based companies within the client house.
Our founders get get admission to to the collective wisdom of our LPs, our broader community around the client ecosystem and our staff’s revel in scaling client manufacturers over two decades—giving them an unfair merit.
Gilad Berenstein, Brook Bay Capital: I’ve spent maximum of my grownup existence as a startup founder and CEO and best the previous a number of years as a qualified investor, and I’ve all the time approached my position as an investor, board director and/or consultant within the
similar approach, which is as a idea spouse, consultant and confidant for the founders. That won’t exchange.
Over the last 5 years, I’ve doubled down on one key macro merit I’ve as an investor {and professional} board director, which is the flywheel of concepts and insights that I’ve built over the last decade. This flywheel of information allows
me to toughen my portfolio corporations—and lots of different corporations I handle—via serving to light up the street forward, the place call for will likely be, what the M&A markets are more likely to do, the place AI is heading, the place to focal point their gaze and find out how to optimize their
efforts.
How are you seeing the hype round AI have an effect on the startup panorama?
Fox/Energetic Companions: As client traders, we’re specifically fascinated by founders who’re the use of AI in considerate, inventive tactics to reinforce the shopper revel in and construct aggressive merit, in addition to truly commercially savvy founders who’re the use of
it to optimize inner operations and efficiencies. One of the most thrilling shifts in journey is across the seek and discovery layer, the place AI is enabling the evolution from static filters to dynamic discovery and making plans gear which are hyper-personalized for
customers. In the end, even though, we nonetheless consider that emblem, storytelling and group are core moats in client. AI can support those efforts, however it received’t substitute them.
There used to be substantial marketplace distortion early on within the cycle that noticed various concepts get funded that were not truly able for high time. Maximum of the ones had been cleared out already.
Cara Whitehill, Thayer Funding Companions
Berenstein/Brook Bay Capital: AI is a humorous factor, it is each overhyped and under-hyped on the similar time.
Sure, AI and extra in particular AI startups are steadily overhyped. We see a variety of startups that followed AI six weeks in the past construction hype via pretending to have deep differentiated tech. We see traders, who two years in the past had been construction hype
for and espousing experience in Web3 and ahead of that they knew the entirety about SPAC’s, now claiming to have differentiated insights about AI, and patrons within the financial system switching AI methods quarterly. The important thing detrimental have an effect on of the ‘AI Hype’
is noise and confusion.
Founders want to take a deep breath. They want to focal point on successfully growing precise ROI for his or her purchasers (no longer ROI within the type of hype however precise trade ROI) and carefully monitor and measure shopper KPIs to display price in a market that
is noisy and filled with unrealized guarantees.
Whitehill/Thayer Funding Companions: There used to be substantial marketplace distortion early on within the cycle that noticed various concepts get funded that were not truly able for high time. Maximum of the ones had been cleared out already. Now we are directly to the following sub-cycle and seeing numerous process round agentic AI, which constructed on that first wave. A lot of the ones are most certainly no longer rather able both, and we will see every other clearing of the marketplace quickly. So, I would say the entire pace of those hype cycles is rushing up. Every cycle brings some intriguing new concepts and a handful of viable startups into the ecosystem that spur the following cycle.
What’s your primary piece of recommendation for aspiring founders?
Whitehill/Thayer Funding Companions: It is truly 1(a) and 1(b) as a result of they’re carefully intertwined. 1(a): be obsessive about the issue, no longer the answer, and 1(b): be sure that drawback is huge sufficient and individuals are keen to pay you to unravel it.
Berenstein/Brook Bay Capital: Forget about the hype and concentrate on basics. Discover a actual trade drawback or client ache level that has been round for some time, no longer person who someway gave the impression a couple of weeks in the past. Validate that there’s a very easy and devoted
method to display your startup’s ROI for purchasers; in a global of never-ending hype, and one the place the construct as opposed to purchase determination is shifting against the construct, the winners would be the ones with an indeniable method to measure and display ROI. And maximum
of all, focal point! If the issue is actual and lasting, you wish to have no longer be distracted via the scoop of the day.
Finegan/Antler: Get started with the staff. The proper co-founders can boost up the entirety, from navigating early demanding situations to construction momentum. Be obsessive about the issue you’re fixing however know that a perfect staff is what brings the approach to existence.
Forget about the hype and concentrate on basics. Discover a actual trade drawback or client ache level that has been round for some time, no longer person who someway gave the impression a couple of weeks in the past.
Gilad Berenstein, Brook Bay Capital
Tuli/F-High Capital: When you’re aspiring and haven’t began but, ask your self whether or not you are going to love the ups and downs of the adventure up to ringing the IPO bell at some point. The combo of pleasure, optimism and concern are commonplace, but when it’s in reality concerning the
adventure, then one of the simplest ways to start is to simply start. You’ll by no means be extra able than you’re nowadays.
What’s your basic outlook for startup investment around the journey trade for the following few years?
Finegan/Antler: Whilst investment dynamics proceed to conform, we’re excited to peer founders tackling main demanding situations and alternatives in journey from the earliest phases. The winners will likely be the ones addressing unsexy, operational issues of recent era,
no longer simply chasing client hype. As a world day-zero investor, we again outstanding folks first, and we’re seeing robust skill bringing actual innovation into this house.
Tuli/F-High Capital: I’m positive, particularly at enlargement and later phases, however that capital will glide previous over the years. The marketplace has matured. Capital is extra travel-literate. Scale results at the moment are actual. The trail from concept to IPO is clearer, and journey
tech has advanced from area of interest to full-blown class.
Fox/Energetic Companions: Shuttle stays a cyclical trade, and what units the winners aside is construction with a long-term view and having a in reality defensible proposition. Call for is favoring extra versatile, customized and sustainable journey, and startups tapping
into those developments are well-positioned to draw investment. We’re additionally carefully monitoring the intersection of AI and journey and the way startups are leveraging it to supply new and thrilling client stories, in addition to support their operations.
