Skift Take
Travel venture capital hit a decade low of $2.9 billion in 2023, but early 2024 signals a rebound with increased investments from Asia and the Middle East and a focus on experiences and AI.
Skift Research's latest report explores the state of venture capital investment in the travel industry. Below we present 5 key insights and takeaways.
Insight 1: Venture capital investment in the travel industry has dropped to its lowest level in a decade.Travel had only $2.9 billion of venture capital (VC) investment in 2023, compared to $5 billion in 2022 and nearly $9 billion in 2019. It was the lowest level in 10 years.
The number of deals has also dropped considerably, from 1,021 deals in 2019 to only 587 in 2023. The number of deals in 2023 dropped more than 20% vs 2022 – the second steepest decline since the 2020 lockdowns.
The declines in travel investment track the overall declines in VC, which continues to struggle in a tough macroeconomic environment marked by higher rates and declining valuations.
In 2020 and 2021, travel VC underperformed the total VC market. However, in 2022 and 2023, both saw similar declines, with each down about 40%.
Insight 2. There is an on-going shift towards investment into later-stage, mature companies.Though 2020 and 2021 saw a surge in early stage (pre-seed or seed capital) VC raised by start-ups, there was a move toward late-stage funding in 2023.
For example, there was a drop last year in VC funding across every deal stage – except late-