SaaS
France
Fairjungle
Date Invested
2023
Investor
Whitestones Ventures, Weaving Group, A&G Invest, Secret Fund
Founders
Saad Berrada, Samir Idris, Bertrand Guiheneuf
Seed
FairJungle is a travel solution platform for responsible business. Think green TravelPerk or smart CWT.
How would you best describe your company/business in a few words?
FairJungle is a travel solution platform for responsible businesses. Think green TravelPerk or smart CWT.
Can you briefly introduce the team?
Saad Berrada, CEO: started in finance (built and sold new derivatives at Goldman Sachs), then became a consultant at McKinsey (where he met Samir).
Samir Idris, COO: co-founded a social network dedicated to wellness and fitness. Then joined the world of consulting at McKinsey, where his focus was primarily on tech and business strategy.
Bertrand Guiheneuf, CTO: leader of tech teams for more than 20 years. He co-led Apple Calendar development before working on the version first version of the iPhone. Then cofounded Fotopedia, a visual storytelling application.
Can you elaborate on what you do?
Fairjungle is the next-generation business travel platform. Transforming traditional BPO industries into digital-saas industries by simplifying, streamlining and making more responsible everything around travel booking and travel management.
Why does your solution matter? [if you have a mission statement, insert here] And why today?
Until now, nobody has actually thought about sustainability natively in the travel industry. Incumbents are merely adding features, such as sustainability reporting or green screening. However, at FairJungle, they started from the ground up to address sustainability challenges. Their initial focus has been on developing a multi-modal engine, designed to find the most efficient and responsible journey possible. It’s the first solution that offers door-to-door booking for any mode of transport. It’s a significant innovation in the world of travel agencies, which often lack automation and quality service.
FairJungle is a must now for at least two reasons: (a) travel is one of the major cost factors in sustainability, and (b) the deregulation of the rail network in Europe has led to a surge in the number of operators, making it challenging for traditional players to maintain a comprehensive view of all avalaible options.
Can you tell me where the idea came from?
Saad and Samir, both former consultants, frequently travelled for work, typically at least once per week. They were spending a lot of money on that, even to attend basic meetings. To their admission “it felt like chaos“, so they wanted to change the behaviour of business travel, in terms of optimizing the process but also enhancing the responsibility.
Can you mention a couple of clients and how they are using your product?
They are serving companies between 50-1000 FTEs, in 26 countries.
Among their clients, they have Winamax, Vinci Aéroport, Agicap, Lydia, and Pretto.
Can you tell me about some achievements and challenges your’re meeting?
Achievements:
after covid they had 0 revenue - they grew from 0 to around 25m€ of volume in 30 months, while being super lean (34 people team today). They can reach profitability very easily.
they signed big direct partnerships with Trainline, Booking, Air Canada, Hertz, Sixt, and Virtuo
Challenges:
Providers like Air France and SNCF require substantial guarantees since their business partners settle payments at the end of each month. FairJungle being a highly growing, young company is perceived as a high-risk partner. Consequently, these providers demand significant cash payments upfront, leading to an increased need for working capital.
What excites you the most about building a company in general and this company in particular?
Two things is especially exciting for the founding team:
1/ building a vision of what business travel will be in 10 years (more digital, more mobile, more sustainable) and executing this vision by building a great product,
2/ learning how to mitigate exogenous adverse events - they had to handle a lot of things in a very short time frame when covid happened.
How do you see the company in 8 to 10 years?
Fairjungle will be the reference for responsible business travel for the midmarket in Europe.
One of Saad's secret aspirations is to be extensively imitated in the future.
What is the best way to contact someone in your team and become a client?
Go to the website fairjungle.com and book a demo. You’ll be contacted very quickly by one of their specialists. It takes 5 minutes to make an account.
How can we stay updated on your journey? (newsletters, social media, other channels)?
You can subscribe to the newsletter on the website. You can also follow them on Linkedin.