Rome2Rio is an Australian online multimodal transport journey planner offering travel services globally.[1] The company is based in Melbourne, Australia, and is owned by the German online travel comparison and booking website Omio.
 | |
| Founded | September 2010 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Melbourne, |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Owner | Omio |
| Founder(s) | Michael Cameron Bernhard Tschirren |
| Industry | Travel website Search engine |
History
Rome2Rio was founded by Bernhard Tschirren and Michael Cameron, former Microsoft software engineers, who began working on the project in September 2010.[2][3]The beta version of Rome2Rio was launched on 7 April 2011.[4][5]
In May 2012, Rod Cuthbert, founder of Viator, became CEO, and the company raised $450,000 in funding.[6][7] Rome2Rio has received several awards, including the People's Choice Award at Phocuswright 2012,[8] the TRAVELtech Global Collect Website of the Year in 2013,[9] the Data Specialist Award at the WITovation Awards in 2015,[10] and the Best Metasearch Award at the Travolution Awards in 2016.[11]
The company raised a total of $2.8 million in funding, including a $1.2 million grant from Commercialization Australia in 2014.[12] In July 2015, Rome2Rio announced that support for its white-label product would cease in January 2016 due to development resource pressures from rapid growth in its consumer business.[13] Initially, the company offered both white-label products and application programming interface options for partners integrating its multimodal results into websites and mobile apps.[14]
In 2016, the company introduced direct booking options.[15] In April 2017, Rod Cuthbert became Executive Chairman, Michael Cameron became CEO, and Bernie Tschirren was appointed Chief Architect. Kirsteene Phelan became COO.[16] In November 2017, Rome2Rio moved to a new headquarters in Richmond, Melbourne's digital quarter.[17]
In July 2019, Craig Penfold joined the company as Chief Technology Officer. In October 2019, Rome2Rio was acquired by Omio, a Berlin-based travel booking platform.[18][19] In January 2020, Yeswanth Munnangi became CEO, and Michael Cameron joined the board of directors.