Trevolta is a global crowd-funded travels website. It was founded in September 2013 by Mark Karimov, Donovan Solms and Lorette Le Roux. Based in Johannesburg- South Africa, Trevolta enables travelers to submit their extraordinary ideas for expeditions in order to raise funds for it. "We enable travelers to raise funds for their trip from the crowd and sponsors," says Mark, the CEO. All co-founders previously worked for Archer Inc. - a mobile marketing company. That's where they met, became friends and then went on their own journey of disrupting the travel and crowdfunding industry.
"Crowd-funding became such a massive industry that it started to split up into specific niches. We saw the opportunity to take the travelling niche and started working on the idea in September last year," says the Technology head, Donovan. They released their first beta version in January 2014 and already had 400,000 registered users. "We noticed that many travelers were sponsored by some great brands - that's when the idea formed properly in our heads and we just had to act on it," adds Lorette, the CCO.
Trevolta connects travelers with brands and sponsors. They go beyond crowd-funding, and build a passionate community of travelers who support each other, generate amazing content and achieve their dreams. They have partnered with South African Airways on their marketing campaign that attracted the travelers from 41 countries to participate. They are also working with another airline on their inspiring travels project that will be launched in August. Apart from this, brand such as Samsung, Hi-Tec, Hampton Inn, Hertz and others supporting their travelers.
This team of 6 enthusiastic people believes in giving 110%. They are currently in the process of setting up the Headquarters in US. "We want to be closer to the majority of our users and brands we're working with. We have a massive development roadmap and we're committed to work on the user experience, new features and new direction this business will take us to. Trevolta is a living organism and we adapt and change as we grow," adds Mark.
They are seed funded with $170k USD by a local VC with a participation of various Angels. CEO of Archer Inc. was one of their early investors. They are also looking to raise another seed round in the States.
As a message for future entrepreneurs, Mark says, "Be ready to sacrifice who you are to who you want to be. Set your priorities straight - you should find the strength to change your bad habits, kill procrastination, become more disciplined and sacrifice your social life for your goal. If your priorities are right, it won't be a problem."
So what are you waiting for? Plan an extraordinary trip and get it funded by inspired people, amazed friends and generous sponsors.
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