Hopper Announces US $100 Million in Series D Funding Led by OMERS Ventures

Hopper, the world's fastest growing travel booking app, today announced US $100 million (CA ~$128 million) in Series D financing led by OMERS Ventures. Existing investors Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), Accomplice, Brightspark Ventures, Investissement Québec, BDC Capital IT Venture Fund, and new investor Citi Ventures participated in the round, bringing the company’s total funding to date to US $184 million (CA ~$235 million). The new funding will be used to expand Hopper’s market presence globally and continue its AI development.

As the leading mobile-only travel booking company, Hopper has distinguished itself in the travel industry with its unique conversational commerce model and powerful machine learning. The app enables travelers to save money and travel more by predicting future prices for flights and accommodations with 95% recommendation accuracy, offering personalized tips, and notifying travelers about price drops and deals. 

In the past year, Hopper has scaled to over 30 million installs, expanded its product offering by rolling out its hotels feature to over 20 markets, and is on track to surpass $1 billion in sales. Travelers have planned over 75 million trips and each day add over 150,000 new trip watches (i.e. enable trip-specific alerts). As a result, 90% of Hopper’s sales come directly from its conversation (push notifications). This is an opportunity completely unique to mobile and a trend that continues to grow as users delegate their travel shopping to the app. Most travel apps are deleted after one month; by contrast, over 50% of Hopper’s sales come from repeat bookers, and users on average engage with the app every 4-5 days while planning a trip. 

Hopper has seen significant international traction in 2018 and plans to accelerate that growth in key markets abroad, with 25% of ticket sales already originating outside of the United States. Early yet significant product improvements, such as the inclusion of 47 low-cost carriers in Europe, have led to pronounced growth in the region, with sales up 154% YoY. Australia, the first market targeted for international launch, has seen sales increase 290% YoY. International expansion priorities include language, currency, and pricing localization. 

Today, 25% of Hopper’s bookings are the result of AI, meaning users are booking trips they didn’t explicitly search for but the app knew to suggest. Conversion rates on AI-based recommendation notifications are 2.6X higher than ones for which the users explicitly searched. In order to do this, the company has developed and trained an algorithm unlike any other in the travel industry. Hopper’s unique environment (a closed ecosystem, 1:1 conversation with each user, users planning trips 30-60 days earlier on Hopper than on the web) has created an opportunity to utilize machine learning and AI to learn users’ preferences on a much deeper level and help guide their purchasing decisions.

The company's funds will also fuel Hopper's hiring initiatives as it plans to double its headcount in the next year. In the last year, Hopper has grown to nearly 200 employees in Montreal, Cambridge, and various offices around the world.