TravelMuse launches new widget, scores $600K

TravelMuse launches new widget, scores $600K

It’s a good week for trip planning website TravelMuse. It launched its first application, the TravelMuse Plan-It!, which allows users to collect travel information from a range of sites in one centralized location — and then share it with their friends. On top of that, it brought in $600,000 in first-round funding from Azure Capital Partners.

The widget, designed for placement on travel blogs, lets users quickly save content by clicking on a Plant-It! icon on… Continue Reading

UpTake, the travel search engine that gets its traffic from Google, takes in $10M

UpTake, the travel search engine that gets its traffic from Google, takes in $10M

UpTake , the travel search engine formerly known as Kango, has raised over $10 million in a second round of financing.

Unlike many content-focused travel sites, which seem to proliferate daily (see TripWolf, IgoUgo, TripSay), UpTake has no illusions about becoming the first place people turn for travel info. It has instead built a strategy almost entirely based around aggregating high-quality content from other sources and pulling in traffic from travel searches executed on major search… Continue Reading

Travel startup UpTake set to launch opinions super-site

Travel startup UpTake set to launch opinions super-site

With so many online travel sites crowding the market, you’d think we were nearing a Web 2.0 travel bubble. But according to travel information search engine UpTake, which is launching May 14, there’s still an untapped niche in the market: a travel-opinions supersite.

The market is extremely fragmented with thousands of micro-sites for individual hotels, beaches, airlines and leisure activities. UpTake’s goal is to gather opinions from all of those sites together and become the most… Continue Reading