Travel App Hopper Secures Another $96 Million From Capital One

The Canadian startup Hopper, a popular travel booking app, announced Monday that it has secured a $96 million investment from Capitol One, solidifying a long-term partnership between the two companies. Capital One previously led Hopper’s Series F round that raised $170 million in March 2021.

“The new funds will be used to accelerate the company’s growth across several fronts including fueling its new social commerce initiatives,” Hopper said in a statement to Forbes.

While declining to quantify Capital One’s equity stake in the company, Hopper said “this investment and the extension of the partnerships demonstrates the strong traction the companies are seeing one year into the partnership.”

Last year, Hopper and Capital One joined forces to launch Capital One Travel, a Hopper-powered travel booking portal combining cardholder benefits with fintech products like price freezes, price drop protection, and cancel-for-any-reason insurance.

“Since launch, Capital One Travel is driving travel bookings at record levels, outpacing both industry growth and pre-pandemic volumes and repeat usage of Capital One Travel continues to grow,” said Hopper.

A private company on track to sell $4.5 billion in sales this year, Hopper claims to be the third-largest online travel agency (OTA) in North America with nearly 80 million downloads of its free app.

The company has enjoyed an upward trajectory throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, as uncertainty about trip disruptions fueled travelers’ desire to hedge their investments with one or more of the app’s growing number of fintech price-protection solutions. Nearly 60% of app customers purchase at least one fintech product when making a booking.

The company was cagey about its current worth. “We’re a private company so we don't disclose valuations,” said a Hopper spokesperson. “That said, it's a significant increase from our last valuation because of all the recent growth covered in the announcement.” Earlier this year, Forbes reported that Hopper was valued at $5 billion.

Despite much speculation about a future public offering, but Hopper declined to put a timeline on when it might go public. “Right now there are no specific plans for an IPO,” the company said. “We are currently focused on growing the Hopper app, along with our fintech products and building out the Hopper Cloud line of business. Hopper is funneling all profits back into marketing spend to accelerate growth.”