Berlin-based Omio, a booking platform for multi-modal travel, has acquired the Australian travel tech startup Rome2rio, bolstering its transportation discovery and planning capabilities and taking an important first step towards a global offering. Founded in 2010, we’ve previously covered Omio’s journey scaling up, including major rounds in 2018 and 2016. Omio’s founder Naren Shaam also spoke at our EU-Startups Summit in Barcelona last May.
Based in Melbourne, Australia, Rome2rio enables consumers to search and discover transportation options anywhere in the world across 10 million locations, providing results for more than 5,000 train, bus, flight, ferry and intra-city public transportation operators. It was founded in 2010 and today has more than 18 million users per month.
While they will remain separate brands, both companies will collaborate to create new and better experiences, combining Rome2rio’s impressive end-to-end journey planning offer with extensive transport inventory bookable with Omio.
Rome2rio’s product complements the Omio booking platform in Europe, and supports the ambitions Omio has to grow into new geographies. Together, the two brands will cover the user journey from the moment a consumer begins exploring which destination to visit, right through the booking experience and after they’ve started their journey.
“We are excited to welcome the Rome2rio team to Omio,” said Naren Shaam, CEO and founder of Omio. “They have built a great product with innovative tech and delivered impressive growth. Together, our two brands will reach half a billion users every year and offer access to thousands of transportation operators globally, helping us deliver our vision to solve consumer travel globally.”
“Joining forces with Omio is a natural extension of our existing product experience,” said Dr Michael Cameron, CEO and co-founder of Rome2rio. “We have spent almost a decade refining our ability to help users figure out how to get from one corner of the globe to another. Now, with Omio, Rome2rio customers will be able to book tickets with more transport providers than ever before, and receive support throughout their journey.
“Rome2rio and Omio share a vision of creating simple, intuitive multi-modal transport products for our users. As a team, we are excited about the opportunity to work with Omio, integrate our technologies, and leverage each other’s expertise to scale even more quickly.”
“We have ambitious plans to expand into new geographies and partner with new transport providers, while continuing to improve our product with new technologies,” said Jan Kemper, CFO of Omio. “However, this will not be through organic growth alone and as such this acquisition marks an important step for us towards a bigger and exciting future.”
Originally called GoEuro, Omio was founded by Naren Shaam in Berlin in 2013. Its re-brand this year to become Omio marked the next phase of the company’s expansion strategy as it aims to become a global brand. Today, Omio has an average 27 million monthly users, with 18 million app downloads to date and more than 800 partnerships with transportation providers.
