Travel app Hopper raised $96 million from its partnership with Capital One. Dakota Smith, president & co-founder of Hopper, joined Cheddar News to discuss the company's latest funding as well as recent travel trends.

Travel app Hopper raised $96 million from its partnership with Capital One. Dakota Smith, president &amp; co-founder of Hopper, joined Cheddar News to discuss the company's latest funding as well as recent travel trends.

Hopper Secures $96M Investment From Capital One Ahead of Holiday Travel Season

travel app. Hopper raising 96 million in a new round from Capital One along with funding Hopper and Capital One are announcing an extension to Capital One Travel after the companies launched the travel booking experience last year it will now offer new features that aim to make all four parts of travel seamless for Capital One cardholders. So joining me now is Dakota smith president, co founder of Hopper. Dakota. Congratulations. I know this is a really big deal and comes at a good time to write just before the holidays. What is this partnership all about? Thank you so much. Um it is a very big deal and we're very excited to have a partner like Capital One who will be there for the long term with us. Um So this partnership last year, the two companies Hopper and Capital One, we teamed up to create Capital One Travel. Uh it's a portal where Capital One. Credit card holders can go to redeem their points earned more points when they book travel, but also get access to many of Hopper's kind of notable data and fintech products like price prediction, um, cancel for any reason and some of those products you're showing on the screen there. Well, I'm just curious to, in terms of the traffic that you expect to see Dakota heading into the holidays. Do you usually see a ramp up these next few months? We do usually see a ramp up and have been seeing that already actually as people are starting to book their thanksgiving travel. The christmas travel um this year's holiday season looks like it's going to be a burner so to speak. Um So it's perfect timing for us to keep rolling out these new functionalities like luxury hotel collection on on Capital One so customers can take advantage of it this year as opposed to waiting for the next holiday season. Walk me through how viewers and your customers can take advantage of your offerings and get the best price is available out there, especially at a time when inflation in the travel industry is still causing these prices across the board really to soar Well if you have a Capital One credit card, there's a lot of ways to take advantage of the portal. Um You know you can both earn elevated points when you book so 10 X. If you have a venture X. Credit card on hotels and car rentals, five X on flights, you know you can redeem but you can also take advantage of things like price prediction, which is something that the Hopper app also has available that can save travelers like usually about 10% when they book 10%. Certainly is a good deal. I see Hopper Cloud launched last year. Talk to me more about what this cloud offering looks like for your company. Yeah, so Hopper Cloud is the name we use for our B two B business unit. Um So we launched that last year Capital One was our keynote client but now we have other clients as well. Um It's been pretty cool. It's already scaled to about 40% of hoppers overall business Despite just launching last September. So that's one thing we're excited to do with this new funding round as well is to continue to invest in the capabilities of the platform, adding new features for our B2B clients and we kind of take this investment has a really strong indicator of the quality of what we're building like one year into our partnership with Capital One. You know, we've already come back together to both invest more money into hopper but also to extend the terms of the partnership. What are some perks that users can expect now that this partnership is a done deal Dakota and any future partnerships that you might be working on. Yeah, so I think the commonality of what you can expect like using any type of product is um you know, great prices on your trip, you know, great selection, great customer service, things like that. But then also access to our proprietary fintech and data products. Right? So um we have disruption protection which you know if you're delayed disrupted could be by winter storm could be on your way to visit your family for the holidays. This product can actually help you get to your destiny Much faster and much more painlessly than anything else on the market. So there's like features like that like price freeze where you can lock in a price you see for up to 14 days, so you have more time to discuss with your travel partners or your family to schedule the trip and you don't have to worry about short term price volatility and fluctuations that can actually be really beneficial in a time period, like the holidays where typically prices start to rise pretty precipitously as you get closer to the actual travel day. So Dakota based on the keen insight and data that you have access to as the president and co founder of Hopper, what are some of the trends in the travel space that you're seeing right now? Um You know, seeing you know seeing a continuation kind of of the hot summer travel season, right? So um you know this year more so than the previous year, people are able to travel again um and despite like maybe inflation or other things taking like a pinch out of the customers pocketbook, you know what we're seeing is like customers shift their spin towards more experiential things like travel, like dining out things like that. Um So this last summer for instance, like Hopper, You know, we saw sales that were 4-5 times higher than we saw last year in 2021. Um and actually you know, hopper is growing pretty fast but the industry overall the scene bookings grow back towards 2019 levels at a pretty quick clip. So this holiday season seems to be no exception. That said prices are pretty and notably high, there are a lot higher than last year and the year before. So those great holiday deals, they're harder to come by, right? So that's where, you know, products like what Hot Brass offer can help make the difference between something that's a manageable expense and maybe an unmanageable expense. Alright, Dakota smith, president and co founder of Hopper Dakota, congratulations again.