Multi-modal travel search startup Rome2Rio has secured $450,000 in seed funding and brought in seasoned industry figure Rod Cuthbert to act as its interim CEO.
The funding round comes via two Australian entrepreneurs, Guy King and Bevan Clark (former owners of RetailMeNot) and an unnamed Asia online travel agency.
The round will go some way towards hiring more engineers for the business and other business development initiatives, the company says.
Cuthbert’s appointment comes after the former-Viator CEO (now president emeritus) relocated to Melbourne, Australia, from his US home of San Francisco earlier this year.
Although the startup [TLabs Showcase - Rome2Rio] has its roots  as a consumer-facing service, Cuthbert says Rome2Rio is hoping to form a “substantial B2B presence in the online travel space”.
This will be by way of an API of the system being upgraded in the coming months as well as white label and widget-based platforms.
The final initiative is expected to the launch of what it calls a “multi-hop, multi-modal” tool so users can plan journeys which include up to 12 separate elements, each with a number of transport options.
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About Kevin May
Congratulations guys, this is a great base product and I’m confident many partner sites would love to gain access to the API.
Thanks Kevin for the RetailMeNot.com plug! Check us out for travel promo codes and other promotions!
@brian – not a plug, just a contextual mention! left the plugging to you, clearly
Congratulations on getting further funding guys. You’ve got a really great product, I think one of, if not the best door to door multi modal journey planners, so nice to see you progressing!