24 Apr 2017

JetBlue Ventures backs Recharge pay-by-the-minute hotel platform

Recharge, a mobile app that lets users book hotels outside of the traditional timeframe, has caught the attention of JetBlue Technology Ventures.

The airline’s incubation project, launched in February last year, has made an undisclosed investment in the two-year-old startup.

The company has previously raised $2.3 million in seed funding from Binary Capital, Eniac Ventures, Expansion Venture Capital and Floodgate.

The new funding coincides with the company expanding from its launch destination in 2016 of San Francisco to New York City.

It currently works with around 30 four and five-star properties.

Fellow startup with a similar idea, France-based DayUse, raised 15 million in January 2016 and has since expanded to US, Brazil, Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, Australia and Argentina.

Other companies that have received funding from the JetBlue division include airport transfer search engine Mozio, which secured $2.5 million from the fund and other backers in July last year, as well as an undisclosed amount in Flyr a few months before.