Startup Spotlight – Troovo, the virtual robot for travel and payments

Australian-based startup Troovo is developing a solution to optimize the billions of travel transactions in the global tourism industry. Mind blown? Read on to learn more.

I met Troovo’s CEO Kurt Knackstedt at WIT 2017 – where they took out the prestigious and hard fought WIT 2017 Startup Pitch award. Here’s our short interview in Singapore:

Kurt Knackstedt is CEO of Troovo – and has also worked at Rosenbluth, American Express and Travelport, led the global travel and card program at Rio Tinto, and is President of ACTE Global (Association of Corporate Travel Executives). Kurt is a member of the Sydney Travel Massive.

Troovo have also been featured on on Skift, Tnooz, and WIT.

We followed up with Kurt to learn more about what his company is up to.

How did you get into the travel industry?

I worked on two startups during the first dot-com boom – one sold and one crashed – and ended up applying those experiences in the corporate travel industry at Rosenbluth International in Philadelphia. That was the start of my now 17-year journey through all things travel and technology related!

Explain Troovo in 50 words…

We replace inefficient manual travel and payment transaction processes with robotic ones. Nothing is more efficient, accurate or cost-effective than robots for travel and payment processing! Let people do what they do best – service customers, and let the robots do the grunt work.

What is unique about Troovo?

We are completely “next-generation” technology – we don’t rely on legacy systems or formats to operate. We can integrate with any content, booking or transaction source and apply our virtual robotic processes to support any type of travel or payment workflow.

We are 100% cloud-based and through our intelligent APIs are able to interface with any front-end or back-end system.

Here’s Troovo explained in video…

How is Troovo changing the future of travel?

The travel industry is still dominated by inefficient and manual processes at a time where not only are good people in short supply but the ones we find for the industry are bogged down doing work they don’t want to do. Troovo plans to liberate travel companies from the drudgery of data entry and transaction processing and free up their people to do what they want to do – work with customers!

What’s another travel company you admire and why?

I admire Accor Hotels for the simple reason that they take calculated risks, fail fast, and try again. They are acting more like a start-up than a long-standing brand and they’re not sitting still in an industry which sometimes has a lot of companies that tend to rest on their laurels.

Follow Troovo Technologies on Travel Massive to learn more. Article picture courtesy of WIT.