New York, New York, UNITED STATES
NEW YORK, March  15, 2023  (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cover Genius, the insurtech for embedded protection, today announced it has completed an asset acquisition agreement with US-based embedded warranty provider, Clyde Technologies. The assets acquired will assist Cover Genius’ continued expansion into the medium-sized e-commerce segment. The acquisition enhances the company’s mission to protect all the customers of the world’s largest digital companies and aligns with their growth strategy, which most recently included the successful acquisition and integration of Booking Protect, a provider of refund protection for live entertainment events, which is forecasted to grow 80% in 2023. “Data shows that adding protection within the checkout experience increases purchase conversion rates 8%‡, but 58% of customers were not offered warranties for their most recent purchase, a gap caused by traditional insurers who – beset by legacy systems – have been unable to meet the demands of small and medium-sized retailers,” said Angus McDonald, CEO and co-founder of Cover Genius. “With XCover already available at Amazon, eBay, Wayfair, Descartes ShipRush and many more, our global distribution platform has delivered outstanding growth for merchants with its AI-based pricing for any type of protection globally, and an NPS of +65‡. This strategic acquisition is a natural fit for Cover Genius in America.”
Clyde’s merchant partners include household brands such as Skullcandy, Movado, Dyson, Shark Ninja, Rugs.com, Tuft and Needle, Lull Mattress and others. Cover Genius expects there to be no impact on servicing and sales for Clyde’s partners. Cover Genius
Cover Genius is the insurtech for embedded protection. Through XCover , our global distribution platform for any insurance or other type of protection, we protect the global customers of the world’s largest digital companies including Booking Holdings, owner of Priceline and Booking.com, Intuit, Hopper , Ryanair , Turkish Airlines , Descartes ShipRush , Zip and SeatGeek. We’re also available at Amazon , Flipkart , eBay , Wayfair and SE Asia’s largest company, Shopee . Together with our partners, we co-create solutions to embed tailored, optimized protection that’s licensed or authorized in over 60 countries and all 50 US States. In addition, we provide customers with a seamless, end-to-end experience via XCover.com . XCover.com handles customers’ needs – from the initial sale through to administration and claims, resulting in an industry-leading post-claims NPS of +65. Its award-winning service design has shown to reduce support tickets by 7x.‡
‡ The score includes any type of claim and claims outcome across our partner network except for those partners with less than 30 claims and those not assessed by Cover Genius. ‡Inquiry statistics are derived from an internal analysis of 1,355 random XCover support inquiries from December 2022, of which 1,258 (93%) had not activated their XCover account and 97 (7%) had. ‡Conversion statistics are from a wide-ranging digital retail study conducted by an XCover partner that measured XCover’s impact on core conversion rates using a randomized split test of +70,000 visits over 20 days.

Cover Genius Acquires Clyde, Deepening Footprint in $121B Global Warranty Industry

Merchants will benefit from the same global, end-to-end protection available at Amazon, eBay, Wayfair, Shopee and several othersCover Genius, the insurtech for embedded protection, today announced it has completed an asset acquisition agreement with US-based embedded warranty provider, Clyde Technologies. The assets acquired will assist Cover Genius’ continued expansion into the medium-sized e-commerce segment. The acquisition enhances the company’s mission to protect all the customers of the world’s largest digital companies and aligns with their growth strategy, which most recently included the successful acquisition and integration of Booking Protect, a provider of refund protection for live entertainment events, which is forecasted to grow 80% in 2023.“Data shows that adding protection within the checkout experience increases purchase conversion rates 8%‡, but 58% of customers were not offered warranties for their most recent purchase, a gap caused by traditional insurers who – beset by legacy systems – have been unable to meet the demands of small and medium-sized retailers,” said Angus McDonald, CEO and Co-founder of Cover Genius. “With XCover already available at Amazon, eBay, Wayfair, Descartes ShipRush and many more, our global distribution platform has delivered outstanding growth for merchants with its AI-based pricing for any type of protection globally, and an NPS of +65‡. This strategic acquisition is a natural fit for Cover Genius in America.”Clyde’s merchant partners include household brands such as Skullcandy, Movado, Dyson, Shark Ninja, Rugs.com, Tuft and Needle, Lull Mattress and others. Cover Genius expects there to be no impact on servicing and sales for Clyde’s partners.About Cover Genius:Cover Genius is the insurtech for embedded protection. Through XCover, our global distribution platform for any insurance or other type of protection, we protect the global customers of the world’s largest digital companies including Booking Holdings, owner of Booking.com and Agoda, Ola and Intuit. We’re also available at MakeMyTrip, Amazon, Flipkart, Pepperfry, BetterPlace, and Shopee.Together with our partners, we co-create solutions to embed tailored, optimized protection that’s licensed or authorized in over 60 countries and all 50 US States.In addition, we provide customers with a seamless, end-to-end experience via XCover.com. XCover.com handles customers’ needs – from the initial sale through to administration and claims, resulting in an industry-leading post claims NPS of +65. Its award-winning service design has shown to reduce support tickets by 7x.‡ ‡ The score includes any type of claim and claim outcome across our partner network except for those partners with less than 30 claims and those not assessed by Cover Genius. Inquiry statistics are derived from an internal analysis of 1,355 random XCover support inquiries from December 2022, of which 1,258 (93%) had not activated their XCover account and 97 (7%) had.First Published at www.IndianWeb2.com

Insurtech Company Cover Genius Acquires Clyde, Deepening Footprint in $121 Bn Global Warranty Industry

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,
(Bloomberg) -- US buyback announcements are running at a record pace this year, though more than two-thirds of the $261 billion in commitments are spread across only five companies, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. strategists. Chevron Corp.’s $75 billion leads the way, followed by Meta Platforms Inc. with $40 billion, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. with $30 billion, and Booking Holdings Inc. and Salesforce Inc. with $20 billion each, a team led by Dubravko Lakos-Bujas wrote in a note. While announcements of buybacks are scaling new peaks so far this year, execution of them has been falling. According to the strategists, stock repurchases were down 20% in the fourth quarter, with the pace decelerating since the first quarter of last year. Buybacks have been a key source of share demand in the US over the past decade. But given current uncertainty over economic growth, companies may seek to preserve cash, while repurchases have also become a target for tax increases by the Biden administration. Share buyback announcements by S&P 500 companies over the last 12 months have totaled $853 billion, compared with a peak of about $1 trillion in May 2019, the strategists said. Meta, Big Oil Lead $160 Billion Buyback Revival: Earnings Watch
Other highlights from the note include:
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A Few Rich Firms Are Fueling Record US Buybacks

Dennis Schaal and Pranavi Agarwal, Skift
March 9th, 2023 at 4:27 PM EST
Skift Take
When you consider that Expedia and Booking each made about $900 million in advertising-related revenue in 2022 and Airbnb pocketed next to zilch, then you know that Airbnb can take advantage of a substantial opportunity. Dennis Schaal and Pranavi Agarwal, Skift
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Booking.com does it and so do Amazon, Etsy and Alibaba, so why not Airbnb? Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky mentioned all these companies earlier this week when he discussed potentially launching sponsored listings and an advertising platform for Airbnb. He could have also referenced Google, Expedia, Tripadvisor and many others. “I think it’s a massive opportunity,” Chesky said. “I think you could imagine easily adding a few equivalent percentage rates [points] of take rate if you were to scale that over time. I think there’s a lot of comparables like Amazon, one of the largest advertising platforms now in the world, Etsy or Alibaba or even Booking.com. This is a big part of their take rate.”
Take rates are generally the commissions or fees that a company collects for each booking. Airbnb currently charges hosts a 3 percent fee, and guests in the 10 to 14 percent neighborhood on average, although it varies. Skift Research estimated that if Airbnb debuted an ad platform in 2024 — Chesky told Morgan Stanley tech conference attendees “it’s absolutely on the horizon” — it could start slowly in its first year with around $317 million in revenue, or around 0.5 percent of gross bookings, and grow to a $1.25 billion business by 2026 at 1 percent of gross bookings. That business could soar to $3.7 billion by the end of the decade at 3 percent of gross bookings. Source: Skift Research, financial filings
This would mean that Airbnb could boost its take rate 0.5 percent in 2024, 1.5 percent in 2026, and 3 percent in 2029, Skift Research estimated. “And the bigger the platform gets, actually the more interesting monetization gets,” Chesky said. “Monetization is great at scale. So you want to get as much scale as possible. So we still feel like we’re still in land grab mode.”
There is plenty of land to grab. Booking Holdings and Expedia Group, which have multiple sources of ad revenue ranging from sponsored listings to metasearch cost-per-click advertising at subsidiaries Kayak and Trivago, took in around $894 million and $911 million in advertising-related in 2022, respectively. Uber made a more modest $500 million in advertising, while Amazon generated nearly $38 billion, which was 7.3 of total revenue, according to Skift Research. Asked to comment on Airbnb’s plans Thursday, a spokesperson said: “We are always exploring new business ideas and continue to evaluate this opportunity.”
Advertising Revenue on Travel and Tech Platforms in 2022
Source: Skift Research, financial filings
Booking.com states its sponsored placements start at $0.50 per click. “Because most potential guests click on hotels from the first page of search results, we’ve reserved top placement on our website for Booking Network Sponsored Ads – for example, position two on Booking.com and positions one and five on Priceline and Agoda,” according to the Booking.com partner hub. Booking.com said it gives ad positions “to the highest and most relevant bidders. Relevant criteria are based on factors such as the property’s location and classification.”
In the following screenshot, the listing for The Langham, Boston is an advertisement. If you click on the word Ad, Booking.com states: “This property spends a little extra to appear in this spot, and it matches your search criteria.”
Source: Booking.com
Airbnb currently doesn’t have such advertisements. As with many things, such as host-run and off-the beaten track tours and activities, Airbnb would most likely not want to clone the way another platform publishes sponsored listings and ads, but would do it with its own twist. About the only detail that Chesky provided was along those lines. “And when we would do it, I would also want to do an ad platform different than anyone else,” he said. “I’d want it to be much more targeted and really abide by user experience principles and be very, very careful over turning that dial too quickly.”
That would be one of Airbnb’s challenges. It would likely not want to clutter things up with ads sandwiched between every two or three listings, like Instagram does with posts, at the risk of annoying potential bookers and driving them away. Like Google, Booking.com and Tripadvisor, for example, many ad publishers have their own back-end platforms to enable advertisers to bid on placements, and to target specific demographics or geographies. Airbnb would likely have to build such a platform eventually, especially if Chesky wants to deliver a sophisticated, world-class product. Asked about Airbnb potentially launching sponsored listings and an advertising platform, Kayak co-founder and CEO Steve Hafner said: “Every marketplace eventually pursues the highest monetization possible. OTAs (Online Travel Agencies) have been doing this for years. The only news here is what took them so long?”
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March 29 In London

Airbnb Could Generate $1.2 Billion With Sponsored Listings and an Ad Platform by 2026

NEW DELHI :      As the global travel market recovers to pre-pandemic levels, one company said the Indian outbound travel market is so promising that it is expected to outpace many other countries, faster than almost any market in the west. Even in the Asia Pacific region, it’s going to be one of the top growing markets. Ltd’s chief executive, Omri Morgenshtern, who was visiting India recently told Mint that the Singapore headquartered company was very bullish about the Indian market, both in terms of domestic travel as well as outbound travel. Agoda buys bulk inventory of hotel and rental properties and has about 3.2 million hotels and holiday properties in its listings. For it, India is in the top 3-4 countries in the world and as a feeder market for travellers to other countries, it is in the top two. The company is a subsidiary of Booking Holdings that also owns websites like Booking.com, Priceline, Rentalcars, Kayak and OpenTable. The company’s chief executive said India recovered very well from the pandemic in 2022. Travel in general—based on searches made on the portal—is already higher than it was in 2019. It’s expected to surpass the current levels by 20% this year, he said. The search information includes inbound, outbound and domestic travel which is over twice as high than the 2019 data for their platform. “The market is booming. Domestic travel is showing a crazy, crazy growth, so is outbound. Indians are going outside Asia, and the power of the Indian customer is growing very, very fast worldwide. Business from India can grow in double digits, one of the fastest in the world," he added. As a trend, the company has observed that leisure travel around the world recovered much faster than business travel and as a medium, booking online recovered much faster than offline. India recovered much faster in both aspects. Last year, the total travel returned to the 2019 levels. In India, a majority or 90% of travellers are booking rail tickets online, 60% use online platforms to book plane tickets but just 40% use platforms to book hotels. But the company has observed that travel to India from abroad has not grown at the pace it was expected to. However, as a feeder market to other countries, many more Indians are now travelling abroad. Even if China goes back to its original numbers, as it was sending out globally pre covid, he still expects India to grow in many markets, much faster than any other country. “I suspect that India will gradually become the number two market for outbound travellers to the world. People tend to think that the Indian traveler is not a big spender, but that’s not true. What we’ve seen is that they are actually big spenders. Across the industry, the customer actually outspends the Chinese customer on an average. So, it’s a very lucrative customer for many countries. In the next three to five years, the financial impact of Indian customers around the globe where they travel to, would be at least 20%," said Morgenshtern. But he said the flight capacity out of China is still very, very limited and while the Chinese traveller is still very important, and they are starting to see the Chinese people trickling back, it’s still nowhere near the numbers of 2019. At the moment, it is very hard to predict how long the business will take to recover from the country. The company said it is now heavily focused on localization in the country. In Asia Pacific there is a need for companies like theirs to adjust their user experience to suit the consumer. “India is one of those markets that if you don’t do that, you don’t stand a chance with them. One such example is supporting the local payment options like UPI," he said. Last week, Booking Holdings reported its total revenues for 2022 at $17.1 billion, an increase of 56% from the prior year (approximately a 71% increase on a constant-currency basis). Its net income for last year was $3.1 billion, an increase of 162% from the prior year. But the company did report a decrease in room nights booked in its third quarter (July-September 2022), which is usually considered the strongest travel period since they are summer months. While the decline was marginal, from $246 million to $240 million in the year, buyers of its stock around the world are still in wait and watch mode. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

‘Indian outbound travel to grow faster than most western mkts’

TUI Group is an integrated travel group offering a complete range of services associated with holiday and travel.

TUI Group

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Barclays US Consumer Bank

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Infosys provides consulting, technology, and outsourcing solutions. The company enables clients to perform against their competition and helps develop their products. It offers enterprises strategic insights into what lies ahead and helps enterprises thrive through strategic consulting, operational leadership, and the co-creation of breakthrough solutions, including those in mobility, sustainability, big data, and cloud computing. The company was founded in 1981 and is based in Bengaluru, India.

Infosys Technologies

The Center today has a full management team in place and over 150 colleagues in different capacities supporting multiple brands , including through its partnership with Infosys to augment Booking Holdings Inc. badged employees .

Booking : ' First Center of Excellence Officially Opens in Romania

HotelHub is a hotel booking platform. It is designed for travel management companies to manage business travel. The platform includes an intuitive booking tool for agents that fully automates the hotel booking workflow. Additionally, the HotelHub platform includes an API that is integrated with the industry’s online booking tools. HotelHub was founded in 2008 and is based in London, United Kingdom.

HotelHub

HelloVacay operates as an online wholesale travel agency platform. The company provides an online subscription service that allows members to access and book discounted travel packages available through the portal. The company was founded in 2016 and is based in Costa Mesa California. It is merged with Priceline.com.

HelloVacay

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Booking Holdings

As Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and the rest of big tech compete in generative AI, tying up content publishers will be critical for their LLMs. Here are 21 licensing targets they should lock up

Restaurant reservation and booking platform CoverManager’s valuation hits $150M. CoverManager competitors are OpenTable and Bookatable.

How 7 Firms Survived And Rebuilt After Crisis: Amazon, Sequoia Capital, Hostess, And More

This is a collection of investors named in the 2019 Fortune 500 list of companies. All CB Insights profiles for active investment arms of a Fortune 500 company are included.

Fortune 500 Investor list

The travel tech collection includes companies offering tech-enabled services and products for tourists and travel players (hotels, airlines, airports, cruises, etc.). It excludes financial services and micro-mobility solutions.

Travel Technology (Travel Tech)

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Booking Holdings (NasdaqGS: BKNG) provides travel and restaurant online reservations and related services worldwide. The company operates Booking.com, which offers online accommodation reservations; Rentalcars.com, which provides online rental car reservation services; and Priceline, which offers online travel reservation services, including hotel, flight, and rental car reservation services for consumers, as well as vacation packages, cruises, and hotel distribution services. It also operates Agoda, which provides online accommodation reservation services as well as flight, ground transportation, and activity reservation services. It was founded in 1997 and is based in Norwalk, Connecticut.

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Booking Holdings

Booking Holdings’s Customers

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