Elude hopes to help travelers discover a new way of taking spontaneous trips, as more people get rid of their passports and luggage after they were lost during the pandemic.Los Angeles-based startup, Travel Discovery Mobile App, launched Thursday. It is a budget-first search engine that helps people determine how much money they can spend. This personalized onboarding service customizes trip packages for users and provides future travel recommendations based on their preferences.Alex Simon, the CEO and Frankie Scerbo (CMO) came up with the idea for the company three years ago. They met in college and became close friends through their passion for traveling. They tried to plan a trip for New Years, but it was too costly. They couldn't find anything within their budget so they created Elude.Elude does not search by destination. Instead, it gathers information such as budget, time frame, and trip preferences (think beaches versus mountains). Then, Elude presents flight and hotel results for destinations that users may not have known existed or could be travelled to on a budget.The company uses the same flight and hotel database that all online travel agencies use to store hundreds of thousands of hotels and flights. It only recommends hotels with 3.5 stars or more.Co-founders now have $2.1 million in seed financing, led by a group including Mucker Capital and Unicorn Ventures, Upfront Scout Fund Fund, StartupO. Grayson Capital, Flight VC, and Upfront Scout Fund.Erik Rannala was co-founder of Mucker Capital and the managing partner. This was prior to the global pandemic. He believes that travel is returning to normal. However, with flights becoming more expensive than ever, more people are searching for travel deals. This was something that was not being done before Elude.Rannala stated that travel is a huge category. Most people are either in look mode or in book mode. The money is only made in book mode. Elude uses a budget-first approach to help people transition from book mode to look mode faster.He explained that they were able to help people find something new, according to their available budget. This is a unique way for people to find a solution and get a great deal.Elude's goal is to decrease the amount of time spent searching for a vacation and increase bookings. Millenials spend over $200 billion each year on travel. Elude offers both hotel and flight packages, unlike competitors who may only offer hotels or flights.We can show you that Barcelona is cheaper than Miami in just a few clicks. Scerbo shared this information with TechCrunch. You would be more likely to take a better vacation if you had this information. You can now take a trip every other month instead of just once or twice a year.Elude was previously in private beta mode, where it had approximately 40,000 people on its waitlist. Simon stated.Elude intends to use the funding for technology development, marketing function and customer support.
