Hopper, the mobile app that analyzes and predicts airfare, today announced it has secured $82M CAD in Series C financing led by Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), one of North America's largest pension fund managers. Existing investors Brightspark Ventures, Accomplice, OMERS Ventures, Investissement Québec and BDC Capital IT Venture Fundalso participated in the round. The round is comprised of new funding, as well as a convertible note that was announced earlier in the year, and brings Hopper's total funding to date to $104M CAD.
Hopper is currently the only company that can forecast future flight prices with 95% accuracy up to a year in advance of departure. The app recommends if you should book now or wait based on current and historical yield trends as well as pricing volatility. Hopper collects five to eight billion airfare price quotes daily, which amounts to 300 billion prices a month, and has built a huge historical archive of 5.2 trillion prices from the past several years.
In the past year, Hopper has scaled from 1M downloads to more than 10M downloads, and users have collectively used the app to track 18 million individual trips. The company's sales have also grown by 23X. In fact, Hopper is installed over a million times each month and is now selling $1M in flights per day. Hopper has earned accolades such as the Apple's App Store Best of 2015 award, the Google Play Award for Standout Startup of 2016, and the 2016 Webby Award for Best Travel App.
"Hopper is sending over 20M push notifications a month and 90% of Hopper's sales come directly from push notifications," said Frederic Lalonde, CEO and co-founder. "Mobile commerce has reached the tipping point globally. We have growth initiatives slated for Q1 2017 in over 20 countries in Latin America, Europe and Asia."
Hopper will use the funds to further scale its growth, expand its international presence, and partner with more airlines abroad. The app is currently selling tickets in 126 countries, and Hopper will be making substantial usability and localization updates to support the app's growth in a number of key markets.
The company's Series C funds will also fuel Hopper's hiring initiatives. Hopper's plans to scale from 40 employees to more than 120 employees in Montreal and Cambridge by the end of 2017.
"Hopper stands out through its innovation capability by using highly sophisticated technologies to predict customer demand and buying behaviour," said Christian Dubé, Executive Vice-President, Québec at Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. "This financing is intended to crystallize the company's current lead in the market by enabling it to accelerate the pace of its development and global expansion."
About Hopper
Hopper is an award-winning airfare prediction app available for iOS and Android devices. Hopper analyzes billions of flight prices a day to provide advice on when to fly and buy. Hopper predicts price changes for your trip, notifies you when to book, and offers the fastest way to book a flight. Visit www.hopper.com for more information and to download the free app.
About Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ)
Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) is a long-term institutional investor that manages funds primarily for public and parapublic pension and insurance plans. As at June 30, 2016, it held $254.9 billion in net assets. As one of Canada's leading institutional fund managers, CDPQ invests globally in major financial markets, private equity, infrastructure and real estate. For more information, visit cdpq.com, follow us on Twitter @LaCDPQ or consult our Facebook or LinkedIn pages.
