A group of Danish students is on the cusp of launching a business-oriented social networking service for travelling entrepreneurs.
Airbnb meets LinkedIn for new travel start-up social networking site
A group of Danish students is on the cusp of launching a business-oriented social networking service for travelling entrepreneurs.
Startuptravels.com has been described by its founders as a service that “takes the best aspects of LinkedIn and AirBNB”.
The site aims to connect business professionals and entrepreneurs with like-minded people anywhere in the world.
Users will be able to search for accommodation, a desk to work at or simply expand their network of contacts by arranging to meet someone for coffee or lunch.
The chief executive is Anders Hasselstrom, a student at Copenhagen Business School reading management innovation and business development.
He conceived the idea along with chief financial officer Rasmus Frandsen, a student at the same institution studying applied economics and finance.
The duo has been developing the site with chief technology officer Henrik Haugbolle, a software engineering student at the University of Copenhagen and already chief executive of software development company Bonzai Development.
Hasselstron said: “We founded Startuptravels.com to meet demands that we ourselves have had while travelling.
“As the entrepreneur of a fledgling company, budgets are tight. You don’t necessarily have money to throw at flights and hotels”.
“This platform will provide like-minded business people to connect all over the world, to travel in a cost-effective manner, and perhaps most importantly, grow their network of business contacts and make long-lasting relationships.”
Hasselstrom said as development team was busy preparing the site for a Q4 launch, he was focused on growing the database of entrepreneurs.
At time of writing those signed up to the site were based in 90 different countries on all continents.
Until now the startuptravels.com team has been using its own funding and expertise to develop the project.
However, Hasselstron and Frandsen have been in contact with some of the world’s leading business incubators with a view to obtaining accelerator funding early next year.
