Hopper, Inc. is a travel booking app and online

travel Travel is the movement of people between distant geographical Location (geography), locations. Travel can be done by Pedestrian, foot, bicycle, automobile, train, boat, bus, airplane, ship or other means, with or without Baggage, luggage, a ...

marketplace A marketplace, market place, or just market, is a location where people regularly gather for the purchase and sale of provisions, livestock, and other goods. In different parts of the world, a marketplace may be described as a ''souk'' (from ...

for

flight Flight or flying is the motion (physics), motion of an Physical object, object through an atmosphere, or through the vacuum of Outer space, space, without contacting any planetary surface. This can be achieved by generating aerodynamic lift ass ...

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...

rental car A car rental, hire car or car hire agency is a company that rents automobiles for short periods of time to the public, generally ranging from a few hours to a few weeks. It is often organized with numerous local branches (which allow a user to ...

s, and short-term house rentals. The company has its main offices in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

and

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

History

Hopper was founded in April 2007 by Frederic Lalonde and Joost Ouwerkerk, both of whom were

executive Executive ( exe., exec., execu.) may refer to: Role or title * Executive, a senior management role in an organization ** Chief executive officer (CEO), one of the highest-ranking corporate officers (executives) or administrators ** Executive dir ...

s at

Expedia Group Expedia Group, Inc. is an American travel technology company that owns and operates travel fare aggregators and travel metasearch engines, including Expedia, Hotels.com, Vrbo, Travelocity, Hotwire.com, Orbitz, Ebookers, CheapTickets, C ...

. It started as a planning tool for travel destinations and activities. In 2012, Dakota Smith joined and the company received $12 million in

Series B A venture round is a type of funding round used for venture capital financing, by which startup companies obtain investment, generally from venture capitalists and other institutional investors. The availability of venture funding is among the ...

funding from investment funds such as

OMERS The Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) is a Canadian public pension fund, headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. OMERS is a defined benefit, jointly sponsored, multi-employer public pension plan created in 1962 by Ontario provinci ...

and

Atlas Venture Atlas Venture is an early-stage venture capital firm that creates and invests in biotechnology startup companies in the U.S. Atlas is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the majority of its investments are located. Atlas raised its fo ...

. In January 2014, Hopper was launched. During the development phase, Hopper developed technology that crawled two billion web pages for travel-related information and added it to a

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

. In April 2014, a ''New York Times'' article described how Hopper's online research reports could help travelers cut their travel costs. Hopper shifted its

business model A business model describes how a Company, business organization creates, delivers, and captures value creation, value,''Business Model Generation'', Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Alan Smith, and 470 practitioners from 45 countries, self-pub ...

in May 2014 to focus on using big data to optimize the ways travelers could choose where to fly and when to buy tickets. In January 2015, an app was launched with functions such as ''flight price prediction'' and ''real-time price monitoring''. In March 2016, $62 million was received in funding to improve its airfare prediction algorithm. A year later, the company expanded its platform by adding a hotel booking service. In October 2018, the company received an investment of $100 million to expand its services internationally. In late 2019, the company added fintech-based functions designed to help users optimize their travel costs. In the same year, Hopper launched a sustainability initiative called Hopper Trees. Hopper funds tree planting for every travel booking made through the company, aiming to offset

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalent bond, covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in a gas state at room temperature and at norm ...

(CO₂) emissions. To facilitate this, Hopper has partnered with nonprofit organizations, including Eden Reforestation Projects, which began in 2019, and Veritree, in 2023. In March 2021, the company became a

unicorn The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since Classical antiquity, antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn (anatomy), horn projecting from its forehead. In European literature and art, the unico ...

after receiving an investment of $170 million from Capital One. In August 2021, it raised an additional $175 million in a series G funding round led by GPI Capital. In January 2022, Hopper Homes was launched to provide short-term house rentals. A month later, in February 2022, the company was valued at $5 billion after a $35 million secondary share sale. It received $96 million in additional investment from

Capital One Capital One Financial Corporation is an American bank holding company founded on July 21, 1994, and specializing in credit cards, auto loans, banking, and savings accounts, headquartered in Tysons, Virginia, with operations primarily in the ...

in November 2022.

Acquisition history

In late 2019, Hopper acquired a Colombian travel company, GDX Travel. In October 2021, the company bought PlacePass, a Boston-based online booking service. In the same year, Hopper took control of a trip-planning service, Journy. In February 2022, a Paris-based merchandising services provider, Smooss, was acquired.

Technology and applications

Hopper uses

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of Rigour#Mathematics, mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algo ...

s to dynamically change the price of its

fintech Financial technology (abbreviated as fintech) refers to the application of innovative technologies to products and services in the financial industry. This broad term encompasses a wide array of technological advancements in financial services, ...

offers, which are designed to provide flexibility for users. Its price-forecasting algorithm, which uses historical data to predict flight's price, was designed in 2010 in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...

. Hopper applies its technology to give users additional fintech functions based on historical data, including "price freezing to protect against pricing volatility", "cancelling or changing flight bookings at short notice", or if a flight is delayed for any reason, changing it without overcharging.

HTS (Hopper Technology Solutions)

In 2021, the company launched a

business-to-business Business-to-business (B2B or, in some countries, BtoB) refers to trade and commercial activity where a business sees other businesses as its customer base. This typically occurs when: * A business sources materials for its production process for ...

initiative HTS, where enterprises can use its white-label travel portals or distribute Hopper's travel and fintech products. Hopper's customers include

, where Hopper develops its travel booking portal, Capital One Travel.

References

External links