Berlin's YGO Closes €8M Series A to Make Hotel and Flight Inventory Bookable Through AI Assistants

"Travel is one of the last major industries still built on infrastructure that was never designed for an AI‑first world," Kögel, the chief executive, said. "We built YGO to change that: to give the travel industry the infrastructure to make its inventory accessible, bookable and ready for AI, whether through their own platforms or through external AI agents."

YGO reports about 10 customers, including Condor, Bentour and GetAway Group. Some partners use YGO's content in printed catalogues, while others distribute it through travel agencies and websites. According to the company, bookings worth more than €15 million have been processed through its infrastructure, and its annual recurring revenue reached seven figures within six months. The team has 20 members across the United States, Africa and Europe.

Ralf Usbeck, a founder of the travel technology companies TravelTainment and Peakwork, is joining YGO.

YGO first launched in 2023 as a consumer business called YGO Trips, with an AI assistant named Athena that helped plan short trips. It raised €2.5 million in August 2024 in a round led by GetAway Group. Backers included HomeToGo co‑founders Patrick Andrae and Wolfgang Heigl, Lucy Capital, Expedite Ventures and Usbeck, and the founders of FlixBus invested at a later stage.

The company has since shifted its focus to suppliers. Kögel has more than 12 years of experience in the travel industry, most recently at a business‑to‑business‑to‑consumer tour operator that arranged flights and hotels for several sales channels. He has described the moment as comparable to an app store moment for the industry, and has said that travel still runs on data formats designed for humans using websites, not for agents.

Online travel agencies and metasearch platforms generally retain 15 to 25 percent of each booking. YGO's pitch to suppliers is that connecting directly to AI‑powered booking channels lets them keep control of the customer relationship and improve margins. Nicolas Barthalon, a partner at Ventech, said online travel booking is undergoing its biggest structural shift in decades and that most of the industry's infrastructure was never built for it. He added that Ventech considers YGO's neutral infrastructure likely to become critical to how travel operates in an AI‑first world.

Barthalon also said YGO's customers have already taken back control of their customer relationships and are showing improvements in key performance indicators.

The Series A money will go towards sales and go‑to‑market work, further development of the AI platform and converting YGO's pipeline into confirmed accounts outside the DACH region. The company is focusing on enterprises and mid‑sized travel companies, is expanding across Europe and says it is in talks with travel brands worldwide.

Large travel platforms are also building agents. Expedia acquired the Berlin‑based company Layla on July 31, and Booking is developing an assistant called Vayo. Startups such as Odessia, which raised $6 million from Sequoia, and Mindtrip, which has raised $22.5 million, are building AI agents aimed at travellers.

One market estimate puts the global AI in tourism sector at $2.95 billion in 2024, growing to $13.38 billion by 2030, a compound annual growth rate of 28.7 percent.

YGO's position differs from those consumer‑facing products. It sells to the supply side of the market, providing the data layer that assistants and agents draw on, while companies such as Expedia and Booking invest in customer‑facing tools.