Travergence Closes Seed Funding Round

Group of successful Canadian investors sees promise in helping tourists discover more while travelling and backs it with funding.

VICTORIA, BC (July 28, 2011) – Travergence Interactive Inc., announced today that it has closed a seed round from a Victoria-based group of investors known for launching successful technology companies. Travergence plans on using the $750,000 to expand its offerings and implement partner programs.

Travergence helps travellers research and book activities, or what it calls "things to do", while travelling. "Travergence is a web-based activity booking site that enables people to discover, research, read reviews, and book activities," said Travergence CTO and co-founder Nick Holland. "We help customers explore a rich set of activities in each city we serve."

Currently serving Victoria, BC, Travergence will use the seed funding to expand its provider content to 60 cities in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico over the next nine months and extend its vertical and destination marketing organization (DMO) partner program in the same regions.

Travergence’s partner program addresses a key opportunity for vertical travel sites and DMOs. According to co-founder and CEO Brad Williams, many of these sites attract high volumes of visitors researching destinations. While most have the ability to facilitate hotel sales for visitors, few are able to capture those site visitors browsing for recreational activities. With Travergence’s partner platform and integrated shopping cart in place, partner sites feature co-branded or Travergence-branded activities for their regions. The partner program allows partners to add local activities into their existing sites and convert site visitors into booked travellers.

"Travergence brings a great solution for the travel activity booking market," said Williams. "Today's market is highly fragmented with hundreds of thousands of small providers with limited access to customers both locally and internationally. Unlike most recreational activity booking solutions, we don’t require our providers to sign exclusivity agreements, integrate with our systems, or commit inventory to us. Activity providers simply join our site and enter their activity information. We do the rest, referring booked transactions to them via email."

Investors Don Wharton, Elton Pereira, Adrian Pereira, and Myron Pereira are Victoria entrepreneurs who have successfully created four companies with annual revenues exceeding $100 million. Two of their companies, RevenueWire and ParetoLogic Software, recently earned prestigious awards. RevenueWire ranked #14 on the 2010 Hot Profit 50 list of Canada's top emerging growth companies while ParetoLogic ranked #51 on PROFIT Magazine's 2011 PROFIT 200 list of Canada's fastest growing companies by five-year revenue growth.

About Travergence
A privately held company founded by two former Custom House employees, Travergence is powered by passionate people with a strong entrepreneurial spirit and a love for adventure. Travergence is headquartered in Victoria, BC with a second office in Vancouver, BC. For more information visit www.travergence.com

Contact:
Brad Williams, CEO & Co-founder
250-984-4299 ext 1002
brad@travergence.com

###

Travergence helps travellers research and book activities, or what we call the "things to do", while travelling. Travergence is a web-based activity booking site that enables people to discover, research, read reviews, and book activities. We help customers explore a rich set of activities in each city we serve.

Travergence Interactive Inc.
235-1627 Fort Street
Victoria, BC Canada
V8R 1H8

This release was published on openPR.