That name: “Disney Play.”
Source: CNET
Travelstop is a new startup in Singapore that aims to bring the benefits of business travel management to SMEs and other smaller companies in Southeast Asia.
The company launched its product today after being founded in November 2017 by three entrepreneurs who worked at TravelMob, the Singapore startup bought by HomeAway in 2013. Prior to TravelMob, the trio — Prashant Kirtane (CEO), Vijay Aggarwal (CTO) and Altaf Dhamani (CPO) — worked together at Yahoo Southeast Asia. They all moved over to HomeAway, which was later bought by Expedia for $3.9 billion in 2015 and Travelstop is their first independent venture following that spell.
That’s a huge amount of experience for a newly-formed startup in Southeast Asia, and already it has assembled a team of 12 with more vacancies open.
Kirtane told TechCrunch in an interview that 90 percent of business travel in Asia is unmanaged. That’s surprising since the region accounts for 40 percent of the $1.2 trillion global business travel market. He said that he and his co-founders can also recall the pain of unmanaged or rigid travel and expense systems and are vowing to solve it with Travelstop.
The focus is on simplicity — Kirtane said Slack is its role model for design — with features such as clean UI, automated expense reporting, flexible travel policy, and data-based insight to allow business teams to analyze travel and expense costs. The service includes desktop and mobile apps.
All of these are still missing in Southeast Asia — at least at the price that can appeal to SMEs and startups — while often global services, such as Concur, aren’t sufficiently localized to cover low-cost airlines or a wider array of hotels. (On this, I can agree!)
“Many other tools corporate tools are still rudimentary and haven’t progressed,” Kirtane added. “We’re looking to reach mid-size tech companies first, but the – longer-term proposition is to let employees onboard themselves.”
Travelstop is letting early customers use its product for free, but the business model that will arrive soon will be Saas-based. The team is also working to integrate existing systems, including Expensify, and other third-party services to let Travelstop users book travel and claim expenses off-platform.
The company has raised $1.2 million to kick things off, and Kirtane said the startup may look to raise more in early 2019 as it begins to expand its engineering and sales teams and launch local offices.
The seed round was led by SeedPlus, the early-stage firm connected with Jungle Ventures, and an unnamed travel-focused firm in the U.S. Travelstop said angel participants included Dan Lynn and Vikram Malhi, ex-Expedia senior business leaders and founders of Zuzu Hospitality Solutions, David Ko, who is president and COO of Rally Health, and Jarrod Howe, who is regional operations director at Hyper Island
Singapore.
Source: TechCrunch
The HBO miniseries, like the Gillian Flynn book it’s based on, races toward the finish, so you might have missed a thing or two.
Source: CNET
Families looking to save a few bucks on a compact SUV without shortchanging on safety should definitely take a closer look at the redesigned (and renamed) Santa Fe.
Source: CNET
The Chinese government announced it will reform the transportation industry to safeguard passengers, three days after a female passenger was allegedly raped and murdered by a Didi Chuxing driver last Friday. Provinces and autonomous regions are now tasked with setting up passenger safety committees by the end of this month and ensuring that incidents are investigated promptly.
The crime led to the suspension of Hitch, Didi Chuxing’s carpooling service, and the firing of two executives: Hitch’s general manager and Didi’s vice president of customer services. This is not the first time, however, that Didi has been forced pull back on Hitch. Earlier this year, it suspended night operations after a female passenger was allegedly murdered by an unregistered driver who had accessed the service using his father’s account. Nighttime Hitch rides then resumed in June after Didi put new safety measures in place, including a rule that prohibited drivers from accepting ride requests by passengers of the opposite sex during certain hours.
The latest incident took place on Friday in the eastern province of Zhejiang and is especially concerning because the driver had been flagged just one day before the murder by another female passenger who complained that he followed her after she left his vehicle. In a statement, Didi said a safety center representative failed to follow corporate policy and initiate an investigation within two hours. The company also admitted that its customer service procedures has “many deficiencies” and said it will “plead for law enforcement and the public to work with us in developing more efficient and practical collaborative solutions to fight criminals and protect user personal and property safety.”
China’s police and transport ministries have already said that Didi bears “unshirkable responsibility” for Friday’s murder. The company has already been accused of being too lax with passenger safety, leaving its users–particularly women–vulnerable to sexual harassment and assault.
What stunned me while reporting this was the numbers. According to Southern Weekly, at least 53 women have been raped or sexually harassed by Didi drivers in the past 4 yrs?! Caixin says there are 14 rapes linked to Didi drivers, citing court docs. https://t.co/Me0oBXRyxo
— Sui-Lee Wee 黄瑞黎 (@suilee) August 27, 2018
The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the agency that enacts strategies for China’s economic and social development, posted its announcement, titled “Concerning untrustworthy behavior in the emerging transportation sector,” online on Monday morning.
In it, the NDRC said it will put measures into place to root out untrustworthy and dishonest operators in China’s transportation industry, which has grown dramatically over the past two decades. Provinces and autonomous regions must form committees and procedures to ensure passenger safety by August 31 and share information about violations and offenders with other municipalities.
While the NDRC mentioned all transportation sectors, including railways, airplanes and ships, it singled out passenger vehicles, including buses, shuttles and cabs, in one passage and ordered municipalities to investigate offenses in a timely manner. Operators that don’t take action quickly to fix “untrustworthy behavior” risk being placed on a blacklist and having their names published on government websites.
Source: TechCrunch
Wouldn’t want this to fall into the hands of an eccentric Scottish venture capitalist, would we?
Source: CNET
True Detective looks to return to the heights of season one with this haunting, time-distorted teaser trailer.
Source: CNET
These induction cooktops, announced ahead of IFA, monitor and adjust your cooking temperatures.
Source: CNET
It’s just 3 seconds, but it’s fantastic.
Source: CNET
Commentary: The murderer in the HBO miniseries has been revealed, but the real killer is the long-acting poison of abuse. Major, major spoilers ahead.
Source: CNET