YGO, which develops infrastructure for connecting travel firms to airlines, hotels and tour operators through AI, has closed an €8 million Series A round. Ventech led the investment, joined by Sake Bosch, Caesar Capital and several business angels.
The platform, created by Julian Kögel, Willi Ibbeken and Sebastian Kreutzberger, sits between travel companies' existing technology and AI systems, letting them add AI-driven search, recommendations, customer support and booking without ripping out their current infrastructure. It structures messy hotel and travel data so AI can parse it, enabling semantic search, tailored suggestions and automated transactions across flights, stays and experiences.
The core problem YGO targets is the travel industry's dependence on middlemen. Online travel agencies and metasearch engines typically pocket 15 to 25 per cent of each booking. By routing bookings through AI channels directly to suppliers, YGO lets travel companies own their customer relationships and protect margins.
Travel is one of the last major industries still built on infrastructure that was never designed for an AI-first world. We built YGO to change that: to give the travel industry the infrastructure to make its inventory accessible, bookable and ready for AI – whether through their own platforms or through external AI agents
Julian Kögel, co-founder and CEO of YGO
YGO already handles bookings for European travel firms including Condor, Bentour and GetAway Group. One airline customer cut manual work by 90 per cent and lifted conversion rates by 20 per cent; another saw average order value jump 2.4 times without hiring more staff.
Ralf Usbeck, who founded TravelTainment and Peakwork, has joined the team, bringing expertise in building technology layers that connect major tour operators, airlines and hotel chains.
YGO will use the fresh capital to beef up sales and marketing, refine its AI engine and push into new markets beyond the DACH region, targeting both large enterprises and mid-sized travel operators.
Source: Tech.eu
