About

DataRiots I.K.E. Is a technology enterprise engaged in the design and development of scalable digital products. Its present flagship product is ReverseB, an early-stage travel tech platform which seeks to rethink how travellers and hosts can meet. Combining software engineering and platform architecture, along with a data-centric approach to digital product design, it seeks to build technologies that exploit market inefficiencies by creating user-centric platforms that aim to streamline, enhance and add value to complex online services, for both service providers and end consumers. With ReverseB DataRiots intends to penetrate the travel tech sector with a globally scalable product, and at the same time expand its know-how in digital marketplaces, automation and smart online services.

Solution & Product

ReverseB is an entirely demand-led, web and mobile-first travel booking marketplace. Rather than searching through thousands of listings on a booking site, travelers input a single form outlining their travel criteria-destination, date, and preferences (including budget) and verified host submit offers matching the request directly to travelers. The benefit to travelers is that they receive booking offers, based on their specific needs, rather than selecting between a wide range of irrelevant and poorly-matched available listings; the benefit to host is that they can customize an offer to precisely meet the needs of travelers and can compete based on their own quality and value propositions rather than ranking or advertisement costs. This system is built around creating more efficiency and personalized and transparent booking experience to both sides of the marketplace. ReverseB is an early-stage proof of concept; the core technology is in place but the platform has yet to become a mature commercial offering. ReverseB has been built to be standardized and easily adaptable to the needs of the other tourism markets with minimal need to localize by market.

Innovation & Scalability

ReverseB introduces a novel, backward travel-booking process. Instead of showing travelers vast lists of thousands of options, ReverseB begins with demand: the traveler tells ReverseB where and when they are traveling, how much money they have for their trip and any other criteria they have (e.g. Dog friendly accommodation), verified hosts then make offers that fit the traveler’s criteria. This demand-first booking paradigm makes a difference: competition is less likely to be based on visibility, search rankings, or advertising spend, but on traveler intent, offer relevance, personalization and value. Travelers waste no time receiving offers more likely to fit their needs and hosts receive access to quality demand without having to bid for visibility. This clearly sets ReverseB apart from existing, supply-driven platforms. It is also designed as a global, standardized digital market which could be launched in any city and any country based on existing underlying architecture. Traveler/host addition drives growth, without building bespoke, for any given country/market, allowing global scale with minimal marginal cost. Ultimately, this demand-led market place logic could not only be applied to accommodation but also to "related" travel and tourism services, for example guided tour, hike, leisure, transfers, health service, activity service or other "destination-specific service" and become a reverse travel service marketplace from a reverse accommodation market place.

Traction & achievements

ReverseB is still in an early proof-of-concept phase, with its main product features defined and various core modules developed/prototyped. The company has already set up the main marketplace logic, from the demand-based traveler request, the host offer- and the standardized offer-comparison. A first pitch-deck has been prepared as well as the product concept to position the company as the first reverse booking marketplace for travel & accommodation, with a scalable transactional business-model in the focus of development, whereby the platform generates revenues through commissions of successful traveler and host booking transactions. Although the commercial product hasn't been rolled out yet, essential groundwork like product positioning, market opportunity, main feature set, early implementation as well as the plan for international scalability have already been carried out. The upcoming milestone will be the full functioning MVP being tested by the first set of traveler and hosts and its validity validated in a few pilot-market places.

Team & Why Us

ReverseB is a project of DataRiots I.K.E, which has expertise in the field of software development, platform engineering and digital product design along with experience in the fields of research, R&D and market-driven digital products. This blend of experience and know-how has allowed for the development of ReverseB not just as a travel product, but as an extensible digital marketplace, with pure logic and standardised processes for scalability and further global development. The company's strength is its ability to progress from the idea stage into actual development, while constantly keeping the end users and their needs in mind. ReverseB seeks to solve the lack of efficiency within the travel reservation sector by switching from a supply-driven approach of exploring available travel products, to an efficient demand-driven service, directly connecting travelers and hosts. The expansion plan for the company includes finalising the functional MVP, piloting the solution in a few countries/destinations with early adopters of travel and accommodation, and slowly expand the solution to other markets based on the existing infrastructure and solution, avoiding time and cost-consuming market-specific adaptations.

Funding Needs

ReverseB is requesting funding to fully develop the functional MVP to market validation stages. The requested capital will be used primarily in product development for the traveler request flow, host offer flow, user dashboards, payments and commissions, mobile-first optimization and platform security. Additionally the capital will finance pilot implementations at strategic tourism locations, on-boarding of initial hosts, user acquisition and marketing, legal and operations setup, and validation of the transaction based business model. These pilot implementations will enable ReverseB to test the platform with actual travelers and accommodation providers, gain relevant user feedback and transaction data, as well as refining the product prior to full market launch. Through the investment ReverseB seeks to shorten time to market, develop the proof of concept to the functional MVP and gain traction to scale into further tourism markets leveraging on the same digital backbone.