Hopper wins National Global Entrepreneurship Award of the Year by Startup Canada

TORONTO– October 23rd– Today, Hopper received the Startup Canada National Global Entrepreneurship Award in Toronto at the MaRS Discovery District, presented by UPS Canada. The annual Startup Canada Awards recognizes and celebrates outstanding achievement in Canada’s entrepreneurship and innovation community across Canada.

Founded and headquartered in Montreal, Hopper was built on the premise that the combination of big data and AI could fundamentally change the way people plan and book travel. Since the app launched in 2014, Hopper’s predictive capabilities and personalized recommendations have proven that a historically complex and opaque industry could undergo a sea-change when faced with a completely transparent marketplace powered by an ongoing conversation between app and consumer. The app takes in over 750 billion priced itineraries per month and has an archive of over 10 trillion historic prices, while the AI-based algorithms power both the prediction and recommendation engines, which together drive 90% of sales. 

Hopper embodies global entrepreneurship with sales in over 120 countries, while on track to sell $1B worth of travel in 2019 with 100% year-over-year growth. This year, it expanded its hotel business to include over 270,000 hotels across 1,600 major cities. The company has grown to over 200 employees in Canada, with over 300 globally. 

“We’re honoured to have our growth and accomplishments recognized by Startup Canada. As we continue our expansion in Canada, we’re excited to keep the momentum going with our recent office opening in Toronto” said Joost Ouwerkerk, Hopper co-founder and CTO. “We are focused on hiring in Canada as well as across the organization as we aim to double our headcount in the next year.”

Last year, Hopper raised US $100M in Series D funding led by OMERS Ventures. Existing investors Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), Accomplice, Brightspark Ventures, Investissement Québec, BDC Capital IT Venture Fund, and new investor Citi Ventures also participated in the round, bringing the company's total funding to date to CA ~$235 million (US $184 million). 

For more information, and to schedule media interviews, please contact:

Kat Svikhnushin

Communications, Hopper

media@hopper.com

About the Startup Canada Awards

The Startup Canada Awards can be likened to the Oscars for the Canadian entrepreneurship community. The awards celebrate and recognize individuals, communities, and institutions that demonstrate innovation, excellence, outstanding achievement, and impact in advancing entrepreneurship in Canada:

• Celebrate those working to advance entrepreneurship in Canada;

• Increase awareness of the importance of strengthening Canada’s entrepreneurship ecosystem and culture; and,

• Incentivize efforts and elevate the ambitions of the Canadian entrepreneurial and innovation community.

For more information, visit www.startupaward.ca.

About Startup Canada

Startup Canada is Canada’s entrepreneurship organization. Startup Canada promotes and supports the success and growth of Canada’s 3.5 million entrepreneurs, with a mandate to foster economic growth, competitiveness, and prosperity through entrepreneurship. Since launching, Startup Canada’s programming has directly supported more than 200,000 entrepreneurs and 50 grassroots Startup Community organizations. Working with over 750 ecosystem partners, including accelerators, incubators, research parks, educational institutions, economic development agencies, associations, and government programs, Startup Canada serves entrepreneurs from all backgrounds, industries, and stages of development, with a network reflective of Canada’s diverse population. Learn more at startupcan.ca.