Led by Ventech, YGO raises €8M to build the AI infrastructure for the travel industry

• YGO is building the AI infrastructure for the travel industry, enabling travel companies to make their inventory accessible, bookable and ready for AI agents across legacy travel systems.
• By connecting AI agents directly with travel suppliers, YGO’s infrastructure also enables direct bookings - reshaping how travel is distributed.
• Series A funding round is led by Ventech, with participation from Sake Bosch, Caesar Capital and Business Angels.
• The fresh funding will fuel YGO's go-to-market expansion, deepen its AI orchestration layer, and convert its existing pipeline into signed accounts.

Berlin, 21st October 2026 – YGO, the AI layer connecting travel agents to the world's airlines, hotels and tour operators, today announced the close of a €8 million funding round. This Series A round is led by Ventech, and includes participation from Sake Bosch, Caesar Capital and Business Angels. With the fresh capital, YGO will scale go-to-market and sales, continue building out its AI platform, and expand its customer base beyond the DACH region, from enterprise accounts to mid-sized travel companies.

YGO gives the travel industry the infrastructure to operate in an AI-first world. As travel shifts from traditional search towards AI-powered discovery, planning and booking, YGO sits between travel companies, their existing technology systems and the new generation of AI assistants and agents.

The travel industry remains dominated by intermediaries, with online travel agencies and metasearch platforms typically retaining 15-25% of every booking, As travelers shift from Online Travel Agencies (OTA) websites to booking through AI agents, that arrangement is breaking down – and suppliers are looking for a way to sell directly again.

YGO addresses this gap by providing suppliers travel companies with a neutral AI orchestration layer that doesn't require rebuilding their own booking infrastructure or ceding the customer relationship to a new intermediary. For travelers, that ultimately means an intuitive way to plan and book a trip in one go: navigating dozens of websites and intermediaries belongs to the past, an AI agent plans and books the right multi-step journey directly from all the suppliers involved (hotels, airlines, activities). For YGO's customers, it means strengthening their customer relationship with an innovative service and finally improving their margin.

“Travel is one of the last major industries still built on infrastructure that was never designed for an AI-first world. We built YGO to change that: to give the travel industry the infrastructure to make its inventory accessible, bookable and ready for AI – whether through their own platforms or through external AI agents,” said Julian Kögel, Co-Founder and CEO of YGO. “This funding allows us to build on the strong business we already have with some of Europe’s leading travel players and become the AI infrastructure layer connecting the industry to the next generation of travel.”

With its proprietary AI platform YGO enriches and structures fragmented hotel and product information so AI can reliably understand what travel companies have to offer. On top of this foundation, YGO enables semantic search, personalized recommendations, automated customer service and booking. Because the YGO platform connects directly to the legacy systems already used across the industry, travel companies can add these capabilities without rebuilding their technology stack.

The same infrastructure works across both worlds: on a travel company’s own website, app or sales channels today, and through AI assistants and agents as they become a new entry point for travel. This allows suppliers to remain visible and bookable wherever customers choose to start their journey, while keeping control of the customer relationship.

YGO already processes bookings for major European travel platforms including Condor, Bentour and GetAway Group, and has generated results such as a 90% reduction in manual operations and a 20% lift in conversion for one airline client, and a 2.4x increase in average order value with zero added headcount for another.

“Online travel booking is undergoing its biggest structural shift in decades but most of the industry's infrastructure was never built for it. YGO's customers are already re-owning their customer relationships with AI and putting real KPI uplifts on the board to prove it. That's why we believe YGO's neutral infrastructure will become critical to how travel operates in an AI-first world. ” said Nicolas Barthalon, Partner at Ventech.

YGO was founded at the intersection of deep travel industry expertise and AI product-building experience. Founders Julian Kögel, Willi Ibbeken and Sebastian Kreutzberger bring together experience building and scaling travel businesses to hundreds of millions in revenue, developing AI products for more than a decade, and building technology used by millions of people and global enterprises. The team is now joined by Ralf Usbeck, one of the travel industry’s most experienced technology entrepreneurs, who previously founded TravelTainment and Peakwork and built infrastructure connecting major tour operators, airlines and hotel providers.

Together, the team combines an unusually deep understanding of both the technology and the underlying mechanics of the travel industry. That expertise has shaped YGO’s approach from the start: building a neutral AI infrastructure layer that integrates with the industry’s existing systems and makes travel inventory AI-ready, rather than trying to replace the companies and technology that already power the market.

About YGO‍

YGO is the AI infrastructure for the travel industry, enabling travel companies to make their products and services AI-ready across their own digital channels and the emerging ecosystem of AI assistants and agents. Its technology structures and enriches complex travel data and connects directly to existing supplier and booking systems, enabling AI-powered discovery, personalization and booking without requiring companies to replace their existing technology stack. YGO has rapidly gained commercial traction, growing recurring ARR into the seven figures in just six months and processing more than €15 million in bookings through its infrastructure to date. Customers include Condor, GetAway Group and Bentour.

About VENTECH

Ventech is a well-established early-stage venture capital firm in both Europe and Asia with a strong digital focus. Founded in 1998, Ventech backs the most innovative and visionary tech entrepreneurs in diverse sectors with a global ambition. With its dual structure platform, Ventech has dedicated funds for Europe (Paris, Munich, Berlin, Helsinki & Stockholm) and Asia (Shanghai and Hong Kong). Since its inception, Ventech has raised 1.1B€ and has realized over 320 investments, (including Vestiaire Collective, Prewave, Ogury, The Customization Group, Veo Technologies, Reveal, Speexx) and over 180 exits (Believe (BLV.PA) – listed on Euronext; Arteris (AIP) listed on Nasdaq; FintecSystems; Withings; 4 Stop, etc.).