SION raises $3.2m to promote robust, open travel tech ecosystem

SaaS platform SION that manages commission payments for travel advisors and agencies has announced that is raised $3.2 million in seed funds that it would use to advance its promotion of a more robust and open travel tech ecosystem.

SION intends to use the investment to accelerate product development and create automated commission chasing, ramp up integrations, and launch a new payment processing system.

The funding round was led by TIA Ventures with the participation from MartFlyer and Virtuoso. In 2020, SION also raised $1.3 million in its pre-seed round.

According to its COO and co-founder Alfons Musry, the recent “funding milestone” will enable their company to double down on its vision to help travel advisors get total visibility across their entire business and to get paid.

“It not only helps to further our commitment to evolve the antiquated ways of the travel agency industry, but it helps speed up our plans to bring more tools and capabilities to the platform and grow our community of users. We’re excited for what the future holds at SION, especially with the travel industry making such strides since the pandemic,” Musry said.

SION was born in 2019 out of a travel agent’s frustration with having to rely on commissions which comprise the biggest chunk of their income. It was also a big burden for them to have to wait for the release of their commissions when its due.

In the travel industry, commissions represent over 80 percent of agency’s revenues. However, more than 40 percent of these commissions contain discrepancies or don’t get paid at all.

SION co-founders Irving Betesh and Alfons Musry saw this problem of the missing, unclaimed and unmatched payments and found a solution to address the matter.

Betesh said they created something that would make a significant impact in the travel industry as it improves all aspects of how travel agents should run their business, focusing on the back office so they can spend more time closing new business.

With SION, they were able to help empower travel agents and increase their administrative efficiency and profitability.

William Hapworth, co-founder and general partner at TIA Ventures, said that the SION team has a strong combination of industry expertise and technical product development skills.

Since its launch, SION has revolutionized the way travel advisors work with the simplest way to track and manage travel commissions. Its software platform brings efficiency, accountability, and transparency to travel advisors and agencies.

As soon as travel bookings are made, SION automates all the core elements including the payment status, commission split, supplier invoicing and interactive real-time reporting.

Since the release of the send invoice feature, SION has been responsible for the collection of more than 85 percent of delinquent invoices, a common pain point in the industry.

At present, SION is managing around $2.2 billion in booking revenue, with more than 1,500 agents subscribed to the platform.

This winter, SION is debuting a groundbreaking and integral part of the platform: a payment processing system that will automatically allow payments to flow through the system. Rather than taking six to eight weeks, SION pays in real time.