Hot 25 Travel Startups for 2025: AncillaryBox

Airline ancillary revenues now exceed $115 billion per year,
consisting predominantly of airlines’ own products (bags, seat selection and
upgrades). Airlines have not yet tapped into the growing demand for destination
experiences.

AncillaryBox allows airlines to offer high-quality and high-margin
tourism experience content instantly and at scale. AncillaryBox white-label
content integrates seamlessly into an airline’s website, mobile apps, loyalty
program and other touch points. Its targeting engine then drives
higher conversion rates.

AncillaryBox was conceived by technology and former airline
executives whose backgrounds include PayPal, Sabre, United Airlines, Star
Alliance and Seabury Consulting.

Founders David Hoppin, Swavek Brzeski, Max Reilly and Michael Mankowski

Strategic goals for 2025

Our strategic goals for 2025 are focused on the continuous
refinement of our targeting engine, increasing our role within airline loyalty
programs, and developing strategic partnerships throughout the industry. Next
year we aim to roll out several new capabilities, including increased
in-journey marketing activity and a new loyalty initiative linked to
in-destination activity.

A further strategic goal is the continued development of three
invaluable strategic partnerships. 1xInternet, one of Europe’s leading digital
agencies, provided the initial resource for our digital solutions and we look
forward to further developing new digital capabilities.

Seabury Airline Strategy Group, an aviation advisory firm that has
worked with over 100 airlines and original equipment manufacturers globally, has so far been an effective
sales channel with introductions to 20+ airlines and guidance on airline
pitches and business cases.

Dohop, an alternative interline solution provider, have been
invaluable in assisting us in proof-of-concept testing and we look forward to
working closely with the DOHOP team 2025.

Lessons learned since founding

The first lesson is not a new one: the need to pivot. The initial
vision was to create the leading airline ancillary data analytics company,
following our CEO’s sale of his previous aviation data company. However, it
quickly became clear that our analytics identified a massive ancillary revenue
opportunity that airlines were not capturing. After a lot of soul searching,
discussions with airlines and an additional capital injection, AncillaryBox
pivoted to focus on developing the technology to allow airlines to capture the
revenue opportunity.

The second lesson is that deep analysis of meaningful data usually
produces surprising results. Thanks to our management team’s network of airline
executives, AncillaryBox was permitted access to various airlines’ internal
ticket and ancillary data. The analysis produced insights into consumer
behavior that did not match either our or the subject airlines’ expectations
going into the project.