Pollen, the travel platform, announced today that it’s moving from being a venture-backed loss making technology company focused on topline growth to an experiences and entertainment company focused on sustainable profitability.
For more than a decade startups have been built on the principle that growth is the biggest driver of valuation and is more important than anything else. However, this principle is not holding true today. Global markets have been knocked by an incredibly challenging macroeconomic environment over the past few months. Inflation is running at its fastest pace in decades, energy prices are skyrocketing, and the cost of living is rising. This has all contributed to a shift in investor mentality as they look for more than just growth, and want to see businesses that have strong earning potential and profitability.
Pollen was founded in 2014 by brothers Callum and Liam Negus-Fancey with a purpose to give people a bigger life. Pollen’s mission is to build, curate and deliver the best experiences all over the world. Pollen uses data and customer insights to create experiences that are exclusive to its platform, and also partners with the biggest music festivals and brands in the world to sell their experiences.
Sales increased more than 300% despite the pandemic
Pollen has created hundreds of exclusive travel experiences and world-class IP, featuring the world’s biggest talent and brands, including J Balvin, Justin Bieber, SEVENTEEN, and Duran Duran. Last year, Pollen saw stellar growth despite the pandemic – sales increased more than 300% relative to pre-pandemic levels. Pollen has had more than 250k travellers on our experiences in the last 12 months across 300+ experiences. Our experiences have delivered exceptional customer CSAT and NPS scores across genres.
All shareholders are really supportive of our change in strategy and agree it’s the best way to succeed and create value in the current environment.