Upgrade Pack has raised £1 million in a pre-seed funding round which values the FinTech firm at £6.67 million.
The loyalty start-up helps banks and employers reward their most valuable customers and employees with exclusive discounts on flight and hotel upgrades.
The raise makes it the top funded start-up working with travel products in the last six months.
High-profile angel and institutional investors backed the round, with the money raised used to build its specialist team and deliver Upgrade Pack’s proprietary platform.
Its tech connects travellers with discounted offers on unused premium seats and rooms through an app which places users just three clicks away from an upgrade.
Upgrade Pack will be opening its next seed funding round later in Q1 at £2.25m with a £15m valuation.
CEO Craig Unsworth has previously delivered tech-led products and innovations that have generated millions in revenue and business value for companies including Ten Group, Global Blue and Blue Rubicon, where he met co-founder and COO Urchana Moudgil.
“We are delighted to have raised this preliminary capital through the support of individual investors who saw value in what we were creating but can also bring expertise gained across relevant sectors such as loyalty, technology, travel and banking,” said Unsworth.
“It’s rare to reach this stage based purely on smaller investors however, having successfully established ourselves in 2018 we look forward to launching our next funding round – and engaging with a broad pool of supporters across investment, legal VC and more – later this quarter, which will take us to our next capital milestone and closer to our launch to market in early Q2.”
The pair has appointed heads of product, technology and commercial to form a leadership team which, including their own, brings experience gained in key specialisms across product and proposition design, advertising and brand consultancy, loyalty services and digital strategy and innovation.