Big Announcement!

(And how I got locked out of my hotel room)

What a week at Freebird! We closed $5 million in funding, signed six more Travel Management Companies as partners, and celebrated some awesome media coverage across the travel industry (like Skift and Tnooz) and with local Boston media (like BostInno and Xconomy).

But not everything was fun and games. My hotel room keylock stopped functioning right as our big announcement hit the wires. It took maintenance two hours to drill/hammer/crowbar the keylock off the door to get me back in the room and my laptop. You can’t make this stuff up :)

(Left to right) Master key didn’t work, so they busted out the key reader with a screwdriver, and then began drilling.

Unfortunately, the 3/8 drill bit snapped in half and broke off into the keylock.

So they called in reinforcements — on his day off — and after two hours, finally destroyed the door enough to open it.

All said, it’s been a pretty satisfying and humbling few days. Freebird is only two years old, but the team has accomplished so much. Here are the numbers:

• 8 large agencies have recently signed as partner resellers, representing over $6 billion in annual travel spend for their respective corporate clients. Just the tip of the iceberg in terms of addressable market for us.
• 2 world-class VCs (with deep experience in travel) believe in us and have led a $5M investment. This is actually the second investment they’ve led for Freebird — their total investment in Freebird now totals $8.5M. Thank you to Joel at General Catalyst and Jeff at Accomplice for your continued support.
• 4 exceptional travel industry advisors continue to provide insights, connections, and support. A sincere thank you to Ellen, Kurt, Mitch and Scott for helping get us this far.
• 12 full-time employees and growing. We’re going to be hiring aggressively — check out our current job postings. It’s truly a privilege to work with such an incredible team — and an incredible co-founder, Sam Zimmerman.

Next week, I’ll be attending the ACTE corporate travel conference in New York City, talking with corporate travel managers and agencies about Freebird. If you’ll also be there, drop me a line and let’s schedule a time to meet up.

For more details, check out our website and newsroom.

Congrats to the entire Freebird team! More fun times ahead!

Best,Ethan