Travelers are starting to plan trips with AI. In a March 2026 survey of more than 1,000 customers, IMG found that 33% were likely to use AI tools to help plan travel in 2026, and 70% of that group expected to use AI for itinerary planning. On the operator side, hotels, restaurants, short-term rental managers, and airlines are adding AI to reservations, pricing, guest messaging, and back-office work.
Many of the companies selling that software are young, venture-backed, and adding staff quickly. This list sits alongside Landbase's broader ranking of AI startups adding headcount fastest, and fast hiring after a new round is one of the clearer recent funding signals for B2B sellers.
This list ranks AI startups serving travel and hospitality by 12-month headcount growth measured in Landbase data, then verifies each company's funding and operating evidence against public sources.
How the companies were selected
The starting pool was AI companies whose primary product serves trip planning and booking, corporate travel, hotels, short-term rentals, restaurants, or airline operations. General-purpose customer support agent vendors were excluded.
Every company on the list had to meet four criteria:
- Founded in 2019 or later, which excludes legacy travel and hospitality software vendors that added AI later
- Venture-backed, with at least one disclosed institutional round
- Commercially available product used by travelers, hotels, restaurants, rental operators, or airlines
- Positive 12-month headcount growth in Landbase data, used as the ranking order
Headcount growth is calculated from professional-profile data and can differ from company-reported figures, particularly for companies with contractors or distributed teams. Several companies on this list are small, so a few hires can produce a large percentage change. Funding and revenue figures below come from company announcements and press coverage rather than headcount data. Funding alone does not establish growth, so it is treated as one of several company buying signals.
1) Loman AI
CEO: Christian Wiens
Latest round: $3.5 million seed, August 2025
12-month headcount growth: +230%
Category: AI phone ordering for restaurants
What Loman AI builds
Loman AI, based in Austin, builds an AI phone agent for restaurants. It answers calls, takes pickup and delivery orders, books reservations, suggests add-on items, and answers menu questions.
Latest growth evidence
Loman was founded in summer 2024. When it announced its seed round, the company said it had taken millions of phone calls and processed tens of millions of dollars in order volume, with its strongest traction among pizza restaurants. Loman reported that customers saw up to 22% higher revenue and up to 17% lower labor costs.
Recent funding
Next Coast Ventures led the $3.5 million seed, with TenOneTen Ventures and Antler participating.
Why it matters
Phone orders remain a large revenue channel for independent and franchise restaurants, and Loman is one of several companies building voice AI for that one channel.
2) Otel AI
CEO: Paul Ryan
Latest round: About €2 million ($2.4 million), April 2026
12-month headcount growth: +200%
Category: AI operations layer for hotels
What Otel AI builds
Otel AI, based in Dublin, sells an AI layer that sits on top of a hotel's existing systems rather than replacing them. It reads revenue, payroll, guest, and operations data together, produces recurring reports, and flags issues that need action.
Latest growth evidence
Otel AI raised about €2.8 million ($3.3 million) in total within six months of launch. Its customers include properties in the O'Callaghan Collection, Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel, Johnstown Estate, and The Killarney Park. The company said The Alex in Dublin reported an 8.6% year-on-year RevPAR increase in its first three months on the platform.
Recent funding
Playfair led the latest round of about €2 million, with earlier investor Nebular participating.
Why it matters
Otel AI targets independent and small-group hotels that run many disconnected systems.
3) Folio
CEO: Kate Adamson
Latest round: $14 million Series A, July 2025
12-month headcount growth: +167%
Category: AI procurement and payments for hotels
What Folio builds
Folio, based in Durham, North Carolina, sells a procure-to-pay suite for hotels. It combines a managed supplier marketplace (Folio Buy), AI-driven invoice processing (Folio Bills), and supplier payments by virtual card and ACH (Folio Pay).
Latest growth evidence
Folio debuted at the HITEC hospitality technology conference in 2024 and won the E20X Judge's Choice Award. When it announced its Series A, the company said it powered purchasing across hundreds of hotels. Named client HHM Hotels manages more than 39,000 rooms across the United States and Canada.
Recent funding
Thrive Capital and Construct Capital led the $14 million Series A, with Redseed VC and SciFi VC participating.
Why it matters
Folio targets hotel back-office spend, where purchasing and invoice handling are still largely manual.
4) Hostie
CEO: Randall Hom
Latest round: $12 million Series A, July 2026
12-month headcount growth: +142%
Category: AI guest communication for restaurants
What Hostie builds
Hostie, based in San Francisco, is an AI virtual concierge for restaurants. It handles calls, texts, reservations, takeout questions, private event inquiries, and general guest questions.
Latest growth evidence
Hostie said its revenue grew 10x over the past year and that hundreds of restaurants had adopted the platform. When it announced its Series A, the company reported more than 2 million guest conversations, more than 400,000 covers booked, and more than 50,000 private event inquiries supported.
Recent funding
Obvious Ventures led the $12 million Series A, with Gradient, Scribble Ventures, Burst Capital, and Behind Genius Ventures participating. The round brought total funding to $16 million.
Why it matters
Hostie focuses on full-service restaurants, where reservations and private events are central to the guest relationship.
5) BizTrip AI
CEO: Tom Romary
Latest round: $1.5 million pre-seed tranche, February 2026
12-month headcount growth: +129%
Category: AI-native corporate travel
What BizTrip AI builds
BizTrip AI, based in San Francisco, builds AI travel assistants for corporate travel. Its agents help business travelers plan and book trips within company policy and support travel managers.
Latest growth evidence
In January 2026, BizTrip AI signed a partnership with Sabre, one of the largest travel distribution systems. About two weeks later, it raised a third pre-seed tranche, bringing total funding to $2.5 million.
Recent funding
RRE Ventures led the $1.5 million tranche, with AI Fund, BAG Ventures, and Correlation Ventures participating. AI Fund is the company's largest investor, and Sabre is also an investor.
Why it matters
Corporate travel management is dominated by large platforms. BizTrip AI is betting that agents connected directly to distribution systems such as Sabre can handle booking and changes with less manual work.
6) Boom
CEO: Shahar Goldboim
Latest round: $12.7 million Series A, October 2025
12-month headcount growth: +95%
Category: AI property management for short-term rentals
What Boom builds
Boom, based in Miami, describes its product as an AI-powered property management system for short-term rentals and hospitality operators. It covers reservations, guest messaging, housekeeping, maintenance, and financials, and can also run as an AI layer on top of existing software.
Latest growth evidence
Boom was founded in 2023 by brothers Shahar, Alon, and Moran Goldboim, who previously ran a vacation rental company. When it announced its Series A, Boom said operators in 20 countries used the platform and that its AI handled up to 80% of guest messages and inquiries.
Recent funding
Avenue Growth Partners led the $12.7 million Series A. Former Hilton International CEO Ian Carter and Goldman Properties CEO Scott Srebnick also invested.
Why it matters
Short-term rental managers run high message volumes with small teams, which makes guest communication an early use case for AI.
7) Airial
Co-founders: Archit Karandikar and Sanjeev Shenoy
Latest round: $3 million seed, June 2025
12-month headcount growth: +73%
Category: AI trip planning
What Airial builds
Airial is a consumer AI travel planner. Users can add links to blogs, TikToks, or Reels, and Airial turns that social content into itineraries.
Latest growth evidence
Airial was founded in September 2023 by Archit Karandikar, a former Waymo engineer, and Sanjeev Shenoy, a former Meta engineer. Coverage of its $3 million seed round said the company was focused on user acquisition rather than revenue. No user figures have been disclosed.
Recent funding
Montage Ventures led the seed, with South Park Commons, Peak XV, and angel investors from Meta, UiPath, and Dropbox participating.
Why it matters
Airial represents the consumer side of AI travel, where planning starts in social video rather than on a booking site.
8) Nory
CEO: Conor Sheridan
Latest round: $37 million Series B, September 2025
12-month headcount growth: +70%
Category: AI restaurant operating system
What Nory builds
Nory, based in London, sells an AI restaurant management platform covering labor scheduling, inventory, food cost, and business intelligence.
Latest growth evidence
Nory said revenue had tripled since its Series A and that it had doubled its team and expanded internationally. In its Series B announcement, Nory said customers typically report 10% to 20% lower labor costs and about 50% less food waste. Named customers include Black Sheep Coffee, Jamie Oliver Group, and Azzurri.
Recent funding
Kinnevik led the $37 million Series B, with Accel, Base10, Triple Point, and Samaipata participating. Total funding is $62.6 million.
Why it matters
Nory is the largest restaurant back-office company on this list. Labor and food cost are the two largest controllable expenses for restaurants.
9) TabSense
Founder: Mohammed Jaber
Latest round: $5 million, October 2025
12-month headcount growth: +69%
Category: AI point of sale for restaurants
What TabSense builds
TabSense, based in Riyadh, builds what it calls an agentic AI point-of-sale platform for multi-branch and franchise restaurants and cafés. AI agents handle menu optimization, product recommendations, customer behavior analysis, and management tasks.
Latest growth evidence
TabSense was founded in 2024 and serves restaurants in Saudi Arabia and Jordan. It raised $5 million in its first funding round and said it would use the capital for product development, regional sales, and growth of its engineering and AI teams.
Recent funding
Jasoor Ventures, a firm backed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, led the round. Trackers label it variously as seed or Series A.
Why it matters
TabSense shows vertical restaurant AI growing outside the U.S. and Europe, starting with the core point-of-sale system.
10) Fetcherr
CEO: Roy Cohen
Latest round: $42 million Series C, September 2025
12-month headcount growth: +51%
Category: AI pricing and inventory for airlines
What Fetcherr builds
Fetcherr, based in Israel, builds AI pricing and inventory software for airlines. Its models forecast demand and make real-time pricing and seat inventory decisions.
Latest growth evidence
Delta Air Lines, Viva Aerobus, and Virgin Atlantic have deployed the platform, according to PhocusWire's coverage of the Series C.
Recent funding
Salesforce Ventures led the $42 million Series C, with Battery Ventures, Left Lane Capital, and M-Fund participating. The round came about a year after a $90 million Series B led by Battery Ventures.
Why it matters
Fetcherr is the most heavily funded company on this list and the clearest example of AI moving into core airline revenue management.
What the AI travel and hospitality market shows
Several patterns repeat.
First, restaurants are the most crowded segment. Loman AI and Hostie handle guest calls and messages, Nory runs back-office labor and inventory, and TabSense replaces the point-of-sale system. Each sells to a different budget line within the same restaurant.
Second, hotel and rental AI is moving into the back office. Otel AI reads across a hotel's existing tools, Folio automates purchasing and invoices, and Boom can run as either a full property management system or an AI layer on top of one.
Third, travel planning and booking are splitting by buyer. Airial targets consumers who plan trips from social content, BizTrip AI targets corporate travel through distribution partners such as Sabre, and Fetcherr sells to airline revenue teams.
For GTM teams, these companies are hiring quickly while adding operators as customers. That combination is more useful when paired with hiring, leadership, technology, and data enrichment signals than when funding is viewed on its own. Teams researching the wider category can compare this list with Landbase's earlier rankings of fast-growing travel tech companies and fast-growing hospitality tech companies. Related lists cover AI customer support agent companies and the AI retail startups hiring fastest.
How Landbase supports AI travel and hospitality account research
The ranking in this article was built with Landbase. A natural-language search identified AI startups serving travel, hotels, restaurants, short-term rentals, and airlines, an enrichment step added founding year and 12-month headcount change, and the results were filtered and sorted into a structured dataset.
Landbase's web and CLI interfaces access the same account, datasets, and saved work.
For more complex requirements, the Advanced Dataset Creator supports filters, calculations, and custom output fields.
Landbase's data infrastructure includes more than 800 million contacts and more than 40 million companies across more than 1,500 fields, with enrichment from more than 20 providers.
A travel and hospitality workflow could, for example, identify AI companies selling to hotels or restaurants that raised a seed or Series A round in the past year, grew headcount by more than 50%, integrate with property management or point-of-sale systems, and recently hired a head of sales or partnerships in North America.
The Landbase CLI setup supports these workflows from a standard terminal and from AI coding environments including Claude Code and Codex.
Frequently Asked Questions
What counts as an AI travel or hospitality startup?
An AI travel or hospitality startup builds products that use AI to plan or book travel, or to run hotels, short-term rentals, restaurants, or airline operations. The category includes AI trip planners, corporate travel agents, hotel reservation and operations tools, rental property management systems, restaurant phone and back-office platforms, and airline pricing software.
Which AI travel or hospitality startup grew headcount fastest?
Loman AI recorded the highest 12-month headcount growth in Landbase data among the companies that met this list's criteria, at 230%. Otel AI followed at 200%, then Folio at 167%.
Why are restaurants and hotels adopting AI so quickly?
Both industries run on thin margins, high staff turnover, and large volumes of repetitive work such as calls, reservations, messages, and invoices. Missed calls and manual back-office work translate directly into lost revenue or labor cost, so AI that answers every call or automates reports has a measurable return.
Does headcount growth mean a travel AI company is growing quickly?
Not on its own. Headcount data can differ from company figures, and several companies here have small teams where a few hires produce a large percentage change. This list therefore pairs headcount growth with disclosed funding, revenue, customer, and usage evidence wherever it is available.
How can GTM teams find fast-growing AI travel and hospitality companies?
Teams can start with a category definition and then filter by headcount growth, funding stage, recent rounds, target buyer such as hotels or restaurants, geography, and hiring activity. Landbase can combine these criteria into reusable datasets and return company and contact information through web and CLI workflows.
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