Freed Group expands footprint in journey with acquisition of Connexus

Digital and good merchandising options firm Freed Group has acquired Hong Kong’s
oldest journey company, Connexus Journey
(previously Swire Journey), to broaden its attain into journey.

The acquisition, particulars of which weren’t disclosed, blends
the know-how experience of Freed, which had its roots in Travelflan began by
CEO Abel Zhao and co-founder Kenneth Lee in 2015, with the standard journey
company experience of Hong Kong’s first journey agent registered in 1948. Connexus operates in Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai, specializing in company, leisure
and MICE journey.

“We see super development
potential for Connexus due to its lengthy historical past of fantastic providers and
the synergies that can be generated between Connexus and Freed,” Zhao says.

“The
constructive outcomes we envisage embody enterprise alternatives spanning journey
providers, e-commerce, advertising providers and model loyalty packages, all of
which can be underpinned by a complete vary of digitalized providers and
options.”

Eric Lau, normal supervisor of Connexus Journey, says, “This
acquisition will speed up the digital transformation of our merchandise by
new signature customer-facing journey purposes, which is able to embody the
provision of recent person experiences and efficiencies for our company vacationers.”

Since its inception in 2015, Freed, which began off in journey,
has been increasing its options to non-travel manufacturers in addition to buying
journey corporations. It raised a Sequence A spherical of $7 million on the finish of 2019
and with the funds it acquired an internet journey company in Beijing, referred to as
Beijing JuXingZiZai Worldwide Travels, in addition to made different strikes to
broaden together with to South Korea and to Singapore.

At the moment, Zhao informed WiT, “One of many important causes for our new
spherical is to accumulate and/or put money into extra strategic companions to assist us to
broaden quicker.”

The pandemic has clearly created extra alternatives for
acquisitions with journey corporations in Hong Kong and China struggling amid the
extended lockdown, and as restoration begins these corporations are trying on how
to rise with the altering journey.

Certainly, it was the pandemic that created the event for Freed to
develop digital options to allow e-commerce manufacturers similar to Samsung, China
Cell, China Life Insurance coverage, BMW and LG to supply way of life and journey
providers.

At the moment, Zhao stated, “our enterprise mannequin is tremendous app empowerment.
We empower corporations to do extra with their buyer base – for airways and
accommodations to promote different merchandise, for instance. Throughout this time, it’s about
enabling them to promote non-travel associated merchandise.”

In an interview given in April 2020, Zhao, who used to work with
Amadeus and Travelport, stated, “Know-how has been a essential driver for development
for a lot of industries, however its potential has not but been totally utilized for the
journey sector. Take a look at AI options general, nearly all of the suppliers are
just about targeted on customer support (CS) element, which put a restrict on
what the AI system can obtain. Due to this fact, Ken and I made a decision to attempt one thing
past simply CS capabilities. That’s how we got here up with the concept of TravelFlan
(journey sector) and ARA (way of life sector), end-to-end AI digital options
combining and exploiting native merchandise, content material, e-commerce, client information
into one strong database.”

It’s a formulation that appears to be paying off. In June 2022, Freed
raised an additional $15 million, led by Daiwa ACA APAC Progress Fund and ACA
Companions. Buyers additionally included Hong Kong property developer Chinachem Group,
Hong Kong Science & Know-how Parks’ Company Enterprise Capital Fund,
Radiant Tech Ventures and startup accelerator SOSV’s Choose Fund.

With that fund elevate, Freed introduced plans to open its
headquarters in Singapore and broaden in Southeast Asia and past. In 2021, Freed expanded to the Center East with
a partnership with SEED Group, an organization of the non-public workplace of Sheikh Saeed
bin Ahmed Al Maktoum.

*This text first appeared in WebinTravel.