Mainport Innovation Fund II invests EUR 1.2 million in C Teleport. This online travel agency uses artificial intelligence to enable companies in the maritime industry to book flight tickets. C Teleport uses the investment for product development, realization of global flight coverage and to ultimately move into the general business travel market.
Maritime and offshore companies book special flight tickets for their crews. These tickets must be modifiable at all times and therefore have very flexible conditions. Modifying flight tickets today is done manually by travel agents. This is very time consuming, as conditions of flight tickets are complex and not standardized. The C Teleport software (see video) eliminates this hassle.
C Teleport can directly find the relevant flights and automatically interprets rates and other conditions. It subsequently enables the user to book, change and cancel flights with a push of the button, without involving traditional travel agents. C Teleport also connects to crew planning software. This reduces time spent on data entry and travel management by more than 90%. The financial information on individual trips is logged in a transparent budget control system.
C Teleport today has connected a few dozen customers to its platform. Customers are impressed by the ease of use and speed of the platform. Jens Moje of USC Shipping: “We wanted to move crew travel management in-house as communication was cumbersome with some of our travel agents. I am very happy with C Teleport. Rebooking of flights now takes minutes instead of hours. I am also very much looking forward to having C Teleport add more smart features to its platform”
Dmitrii Beliakov is the CEO of C Teleport: “At first, I was shocked by how difficult and time consuming it is to cancel or modify a flight. There had to be a better way. Our team has spent months analysing available data and has built cutting-edge machine learning models based thereon. This resulted in a software solution that offers an array of tools to optimize flexible travel management.”
The Mainport Innovation Fund II team is impressed by the software solution C Teleport provides.
“It is a great accomplishment, what the C Teleport team has achieved in the maritime market in a short time span,” according to Thijs Gitmans, Fund Manager of Mainport Innovation Fund II. “C Teleport has the potential to scale to the business travel and the consumer market, as these have a similar need for ease of use and flexibility. This offers huge opportunities for the company.”
Serial entrepreneur Dmitrii Beliakov founded C Teleport in 2017. His purpose? To reduce the complexity in finding and changing maritime tickets. Dmitrii has 15 years of experience in high-tech start-ups, holds MBA degrees from London Business School and Columbia Business School and is an artificial intelligence expert. Today, C Teleport enables global travel management for its fast-growing customer base in the maritime sector. Visit www.cteleport.com for more information.
MIF II aims to accelerate innovation in logistics, transport and aviation. It was founded in 2015 by Schiphol, KLM, TU Delft, NS and Port of Amsterdam, together with NBI Investors, the fund manager. MIF II has invested in ViriCiti, Mobian, We4Sea, Synple and C Teleport. Its predecessor Mainport Innovation Fund I has invested in Casper (exit), Multi Pilot Simulations (exit), Versa (previously FastTrack Company), Ampyx Power (exit), Robin Radar, MI Airline, Snocom, Eye on Air, Undagrid and Calendar42 (exit). MIF I and MIF II are backed by the Seed Capital arrangement of RVO.nl. See www.mainportinnovationfund.nl and www.nbi-investors.nl for additional information.
