Danish Start-up BeCause Raises Nearly $2M to Revolutionize Sustainability in the Travel and Tourism Industries
Summary
The round, co-led by Denmarks Ugly Duckling Ventures and Estonias Superangel.io, includes a $708,000 (650K) open tail-end and the $1.9 million for strategic investors to join on equal terms. This latest installment will allow the company to grow at an accelerated pace as it continues to meet the demand for its solutions from major enterprise organizations and global travel brands, such as Booking.com, easyJet, Google, Radisson Hotels and TUI.In an era of heightened consumer scrutiny and regulatory compliance, BeCause enables hotels, travel brands and marketplaces to streamline, simplify and reduce the costs of managing their sustainability data. Backed by an AI-powered platform, BeCause eliminates repetitive, error-prone tasks such as manual data collection at the individual property level and automates communication between hotels, industry organizations, green certification entities and booking platforms, freeing up valuable resources and leading to greater transparency between stakeholders and consumers.Serving as a centralized hub for all sustainability data, BeCause results in a sixfold faster return on sustainability investments, amounting to a potential savings of millions of dollars for a typical hotel chain in the first year alone. Its a massive addressable market which thus far has lacked a purpose-built solution with the analytical capabilities to help players supercharge their positive impact on the people, planet, and profits," says Andreas Green Rasmussen, General Partner at Ugly Duckling Ventures.According to a June forecast from research and advisory company Forrester, the cumulative global green market spend is expected to total $325 trillion from now until 2050, with travel and transportation commanding 35% or about $114 trillion of that spend by the end of this period. BeCause works with over 20,000 hotels, including brands like Radisson, certification entities like GreenKey, industry partners like the Global Sustainable Tourism Council, and marketplaces like Booking.com.