Tern Raises Another $13 Million in Series A Funding

Travel tech company Tern announced on Thursday that it has raised $13 million in Series A funding to support its next stage of growth. The new investment—led by Viewpoint Ventures and Haystack VC—adds to a previously unannounced $4 million seed round from Upfront Ventures, bringing the total raised to $17 million.

The company, which is currently used by 5,000 advisors and more than 1,000 agencies, is now one of the more successful startup stories in the travel agency segment. It’s ultimate goal is to be more than a CRM, and to streamline every touchpoint of the advisor workflow by eliminating the need for multiple disconnected tools—combining itinerary building, CRM, commission tracking, and more into a single platform.

Speaking to Travel Market Report on Thursday, Tern CEO David Shull said the goal of the funding is “to move faster and go deeper” on two paths.

The first is to double its research and development team, which is primarily made up of engineers. That’s going to allow Tern to accelerate product development across all user types, including improving the mobile experience for advisors, building out tools for Host agencies, and developing AI-powered features like itinerary generation and destination guides. The long-term goal is to make the client-advisor tech experience feel as seamless and intuitive as booking on Airbnb’s app or mobile site, largely considered the gold standard in the industry.

The second is to expand advisor support, more than doubling the customer service team and adding dedicated training resources. This will allow Tern to offer seven-day-a-week support and create e-learning content to help onboard new users and support ongoing education for advisors.

Why Advisors Use Tern

As the travel world continues to gain more attention from technology companies, Tern’s pitch is that it simplifies how advisors work with the industry. Rather than taking the place of a Host, or solving one issue, the goal is to simplify the multi-layered structure that advisors work in, Shull told TMR.

For advisors, the platform eliminates the need to juggle multiple systems like itinerary builders, CRMs, and separate host reporting tools. Tern allows that data to flow seamlessly, Shull said—advisors can input trip details once and have it automatically shared across the necessary layers, reducing any manual input into another layer with a Host or consortia.

For agency owners, Tern enables them to create a “business in a box,” offering new advisors instant access to templates, forms, and resources, dramatically lowering the barrier to entry or switching Hosts.

“If you’re an advisor today, you may be using an itinerary builder and CRM and then having to log into a Host website and report the sale, retyping data into the back office system,” Shull said. “That shouldn’t happen. You shouldn’t have to remember to manually take the steps on the other layers. We want to solve that.”