Danish start-up BeCause raises nearly $2m. to revolutionize sustainability in the travel and tourism industries

05.12.2023 - 08:43 / traveldailynews.com / Theodore Koumelis

Funding will help meet the growing demand for BeCause solutions from global travel brands and enterprise companies.

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK – BeCause, the Danish start-up transforming how the global hospitality, travel and tourism industries manage their sustainability data, announced that it has secured $1.9 million (1.75M euros) in seed funding from investors. The round, co-led by Denmark’s Ugly Duckling Ventures and Estonia’s Superangel.io, includes a $708,000 (650K euros) open tail-end and the $1.9 million for strategic investors to join on equal terms.

“We have retained the possibility of adding another investor to this round and hope to find a partner that has experience with high-growth startups in the impact space, particularly those with a background in B2B SaaS models, travel and big data API, to help accelerate our mission even further” explains Frederik Steensgaard, BeCause co-founder and CEO.

With a $450,000 angel investment from earlier this year, BeCause has raised $2.6 million (2.4M euros) to date. This latest installment will allow the company to grow at an accelerated pace as it continues to meet the demand for its solutions from major enterprise organizations and global travel brands, such as Booking.com, easyJet, Google, Radisson Hotels and TUI.

In an era of heightened consumer scrutiny and regulatory compliance, BeCause enables hotels, travel brands and marketplaces to streamline, simplify and reduce the costs of managing their sustainability data. Backed by an AI-powered platform, BeCause eliminates repetitive, error-prone tasks such as manual data collection at the individual property level and automates communication between hotels, industry organizations, green certification entities and booking platforms, freeing up valuable resources and leading to greater transparency between stakeholders and consumers.

Serving as a centralized hub for all sustainability data, BeCause results in a sixfold faster return on sustainability investments, amounting to a potential savings of millions of dollars for a typical hotel chain in the first year alone.

“We’re very excited about BeCause’s ability to improve sustainability data collection and reporting for the hospitality and tourism industries. It’s a massive addressable market which thus far has lacked a purpose-built solution with the analytical capabilities to help players supercharge their positive impact on the people, planet, and profits,” says Andreas Green Rasmussen, General Partner at Ugly Duckling Ventures.

According to a June forecast from research and advisory company Forrester, the cumulative global green market spend is expected to total $325 trillion from now until 2050, with travel and transportation commanding 35% or