Tara Spielhagen, CEO and Cofounder of Swiipr.

Swiipr, a travel paytech company digitally transforming airline disruption payments for 500m customers has secured £6m in Series A funding.  Octopus Ventures led the funding round, with TX Ventures and Solano Partners supporting to reach its successful outcome. The capital will be deployed to develop Swiipr’s strategy, product and technology, including investment into R&D, AI and data analytics and to drive international airline market growth.

As the world’s first airline specialised payments platform, Swiipr is enabling airlines to digitise disruption payments, greatly enhancing thepassenger experience and driving cost efficiency by up to 60%. After being launched in 2020, Swiipr is already used by 26 airlines across 70 countries, including a major flag carrier whose 4,000 staff are utilising the platform in over 167 of its airports globally.

Over 500m global passengers are estimated to be affected by flight disruption each year, costing airlines billions of dollars in payouts as well as significant customer dissatisfaction, reputational damage and regulatory fines, making compensation a board agenda issue for airlines. Swiipr’s integrated digital platform, including virtual and physical pre-paid compensation cards and a mobile app, give airlines the tools needed to solve these pain points for both themselves and passengers, whilst being fully compliant with the latest passenger rights regulations.

Tara Spielhagen, Co-founder and CEO of Swiipr: "Legacy compensation systems are unfit for purpose. Not only do they cost an airline billions of dollars every year but they also exacerbate disruption and stress. We are proud to have developed a new solution that solves so many pain points. Our airline partners and their customers are already reaping the benefits."

Jens Schleuniger, Managing Partner at TX Ventures: "Customer satisfaction and retention has become a differentiating factor for every airline industry. A clear and important aspect is how to compensate frustrated customers in case of denied boarding and/or significant delays. Swiipr has developed a state-of-the-art payment solution that allows every airline to swiftly deal with this issue, while offering significant benefits for both the passengers and the respective airlines. Apart from the software solution itself, we were particularly impressed by the two founders Tara and Ian, as well as the traction that Swiipr has built. The team has been able to attract a number of tier 1 customers already and is clearly fully on track to become a market leader in the passenger compensation category."

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