Travel search engine UpTake Networks Inc. on Wednesday said it raised more than $10 million in Series B funding from Trinity Ventures and Shasta Ventures, with additional backing from other sources. It follows a $4 million round from Shasta Ventures announced last December, when UpTake opened its site to private beta users.
Calling itself a travel search and discovery Web site, UpTake wants to be the first place travelers look when deciding where to go on vacation, where to stay and what to do. It searches more than 1,000 other travel sites and scours the Web for other travelers' opinions to provide matches to help people make better travel decisions.
UpTake said it will use the new funding to expand search beyond hotels into new categories, broadening to all lodging, activities, restaurants and beaches. It also will invest in its search technology to improve its recommendations and filtering collective intelligence and use some of the funds for acquisitions.
Though based in Palo Alto, Calif., UpTake has engineering teams in Beijing and Moscow. Its founder is Yen Lee, who co-founded CitySearch San Francisco and was most recently general manager for travel at Yahoo! Inc. [YHOO]. - David Shabelman
See Sept. 17 press release from UpTake
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