logo
Stokes-backed travel platform Unravel takes off with £5m funding

Stokes-backed travel platform Unravel takes off with £5m funding

Sky News02-04-2025

An online travel content platform backed by a fund which counts the England Test cricket captain Ben Stokes among its investors will this week unveil a $7m (£5.4m) funding injection.
Sky News understands that Unravel, which combines TikTok-style video content with an artificial intelligence-powered booking assistant to enhance users' experience, will announce the Series A round on Thursday.
Led by Nauta, a European business-to-business software investor, it includes participation from Slingshot Ventures, which is partly financed by Kees Koolen, the former chairman and CEO of Booking.com.
Unravel partners with travel influencers to identify distinctive overseas experiences, and says it facilitates transactions within banking apps, airline loyalty programmes and digital marketplaces.
"The way people discover travel has changed," Vijay Anand, CEO and co-founder of Unravel, said.
"They don't sift through endless search results--they get inspired by creators who are exploring the world and sharing their experiences.
"Unravel bridges that gap, turning creator-shot videos into seamless, AI-powered booking experiences."
Other investors in the round include Antler, Brook Bay Capital and The Players Fund, whose other backers include the Indian cricketer KL Rahul and Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill, the British Olympic heptathlon champion.
OIivier Bisserier, another senior former Booking.com executive, is also investing in Unravel, according to the company.
"The rise of TikTok has had a massive influence on the way people experience content on mobile," said Carles Ferrer, a general partner at Nauta.
"That change has happened in parallel with banks, insurers and telcos adding travel to their list of perks or products offered to customers.
"Unravel has combined both of these market changes, with the addition of an AI booking assistant, to produce an incredibly popular white-label solution for customers looking to add new revenue streams."
The company said the new capital would be used to enhance its AI capabilities to optimize video-commerce conversions and expand its London-based workforce.
Nauta's investment portfolio has included companies such as Brandwatch, Techspert and AppFollow.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Spurs close in on Frank appointment as new boss
Spurs close in on Frank appointment as new boss

BBC News

time23 minutes ago

  • BBC News

Spurs close in on Frank appointment as new boss

Tottenham are closing in on appointing Brentford manager Thomas Frank as their new head coach by the between the clubs are ongoing, but have progressed positively amid a growing expectation Frank could even be confirmed in the next 48 hours as Ange Postecoglou's are understood to be amicable and there is a will from all parties to conclude the agreement Sport understands that recently appointed Spurs chief executive Vinai Venkatesham, who only started work last Monday, has been involved in the process of appointing Frank, alongside chairman Daniel are entitled to compensation for the 51-year-old Frank, who joined them from Brondby in 2018, with sources indicating it will cost Tottenham £10m to release him from his current amount could rise based upon how many members of staff the Dane decides to bring with him.

What would a Tory spending review look like? With Badenoch, nobody knows
What would a Tory spending review look like? With Badenoch, nobody knows

The Independent

time27 minutes ago

  • The Independent

What would a Tory spending review look like? With Badenoch, nobody knows

It would be an exaggeration to claim the nation eagerly awaits the invention of 'Badenomics' but Conservatives are certainly impatient with Kemi Badenoch 's apparent inability to create a narrative on the economy, land blows on a weakened Labour government, or compete with Nigel Farage's Reform UK on a key electoral issue. This week's Labour announcements on winter fuel payments and the spending review offer some prime opportunities to 'punch through'. What is the problem? It's hardly confined to today's Conservatives; every political party that has been in power and badly loses an election finds it difficult to get a hearing. Policies the party are most closely identified with are the ones recently and decisively rejected by voters. How far should a heavily defeated team try to claim that they were right all along and that the electorate made the wrong decision? This might be termed the 'blame the voters' approach; while some buyer's remorse may have set in, it's rather futile to attack the electorate. Alternatively, a party can admit mistakes as a means of resetting voter appeal, but that means upsetting former colleagues and handing your enemies an easy win. What are the Conservatives doing about it? Making speeches, for now, rather than policy… and trying to plot a path to redemption. Last week, perhaps in response to internal concerns, shadow chancellor Mel Stride came as close as possible to apologising for the Liz Truss mini-Budget without actually saying 'sorry'. 'Contrition' is the preferred term. Truss has proved to be a potent political weapon, but for the Labour Party, scarcely a day goes by without Keir Starmer or Rachel Reeves making a scathing reference to that disaster. Stride was critical of it at the time, having left the government and as chair of the Treasury select committee; his apology-adjacent speech won't stop Labour deploying Agent Truss (and she keeps popping up, unhelpfully) but it might blunt the attacks somewhat. What are the Tories saying about the rest of their record? Still fairly proud of it. Badenoch says the Tories made 'a lot of good things happen', such as reforms to social security, plus 'near full employment' and raising school standards. 'But people remember the most recent period … and I think the most recent period was the most difficult,' she concedes. So it is Rishi Suank's fault for 'talking right, governing left' as she has put it. So Badenoch is sorry-not-sorry? The Tory mistakes she points to, such as on Brexit and net zero, actually come from the right, not the centre, and don't necessarily chime with public opinion. A passionate and now obdurate Eurosceptic, she seems to want more Brexit at a time when the voters have concluded it was a flop; as the years go on, she'll need to say if she would reverse Starmer's 'Brexit reset' that builds closer, easier relations with the EU. She will also be asked if she would scrap planning reforms that boost growth, stop skilled migration, bring back zero-hours contracts, reduce VAT on private school fees, and so on. She will also need to eat many of her own words as a minister on climate change and green growth, now she's a 'net zero sceptic'. She may hope to win back some Reform voters by tacking to the right, but she can never out-Farage Farage. Indeed, she's ridiculed him for promising economic fantasies, so how can she now embrace them and return to Boris Johnson-era cakeism? Where are the Tories with winter fuel payments for pensioners? They are demanding an apology from Labour. But Labour's present policy is identical to Badenoch's – restore the payment for all now, but try to means-test it later – so she is disarmed, and cannot even claim credit for forcing the U-turn, which was obviously down to Labour panic after local election losses. And what do the Tories say about the spending review? Badenoch's line is that there would not be a black hole in public finances if they'd won the last election, and taxes would be lower. The latter part is true, but equally a hypothetical Tory government would now be imposing an even more painful squeeze on social security and public services, to the point where the numbers would simply not be credible, leading to strikes. Voters sensed this unreality last July, and as time passes the Tories will have to come up with credible plans of their own rather than relying on Jeremy Hunt's pre-election claims. Anything else? Plenty. Stride may be doing his best, but Badenoch seems more interested in 'culture wars' than macroeconomics, which is a problem. Her shadow frontbench team is surprisingly lacking in talent and Labour ministers, despite their relative inexperience, mostly run rings around their opponents. Can the Conservatives forge the 'Right Approach' again? In truth, the Tories are on a long march back to the centre and sooner or later will have to accept climate change and exorcise the ghosts of Truss and Johnson. They need to show themselves trustworthy and realistic, and willing to compromise with their lost voters. These are the kinds of radical, symbolic 'unthinkable' things Tony Blair had to do to make Labour electable in the 1990s, and Starmer did afresh in recent years. Only then will voters lend their ears. Badenoch isn't the leader for that task.

Nephews locked in inheritance battle over care home snub
Nephews locked in inheritance battle over care home snub

Telegraph

time30 minutes ago

  • Telegraph

Nephews locked in inheritance battle over care home snub

Two nephews are locked in a transatlantic fight over the fortune of a widow who cut one side of her family out of her will after they suggested she go into a care home. Doreen Stock died aged 86 in 2021 with no children, leaving her entire estate to Simon Stock, her nephew, and his wife Catherine, who lived only a few minutes from her south London home. Mr Stock claimed he had been like a son to Doreen but the will is being contested after Ben Chiswick, her US-based great-nephew, launched a bid to inherit the estate himself. Mr Chiswick, a 39-year-old propulsion engineer living in Michigan, had been due to inherit her fortune under a previous will written in 1986, but was disinherited by his great-aunt a year before her death after his parents suggested she spend time in a care home. Fighting to reinstate the previous will, he claimed Doreen, whom he said was a 'fixture in his childhood', had dementia and did not have the mental capacity to make an informed decision. Mr Chiswick, who has lived in the US since 2017, 'meaningful relationship' with Doreen beyond his early years and has not call her since the move, the Stocks argued. Central London County Court heard that independent and 'occasionally stubborn' Doreen had a deep emotional attachment to her £400,000 home in Charminster Road, Mottingham, having shared it with her husband, Samuel, until his death in 2001. In 2019, Doreen's relationship with the Chiswicks began to disintegrate following their suggestion of a home. Patricia, Mr Chiswick's mother, then went a step further and arranged a 'capacity assessment' for her aunt, which is claimed to have threatened Doreen's independence and resulted in the change to her will. Mrs Chiswick denied upsetting the pensioner, insisting that the plan was only ever for a short break in a care home while she and her husband went on holiday. The Chiswicks did not visit Doreen again after the assessment, which stated she 'lacked capacity', the court heard. James McKean, acting for the Stocks, argued the assessment was deficient, with Doreen answering with 'prickly hostility' when she was quizzed about things that made no sense to her. Other assessments around the same time had resulted in findings that she did have capacity, although she was suffering with 'mild dementia'. Mr McKean added: 'The court will struggle to find any evidence of impaired cognition or reasoning. On the contrary, Doreen's behaviour, values and reasoning were consistent and plausible at all times.' The judge is expected to give her ruling on the case at a later date.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store