Zartico secures $20m to develop data analytics and version 3.0 for tourism industry

US, Utah-based data intelligence start-up Zartico, which provides analytics and visualisations to help destination tourism organisations make data-driven decisions, reports it has secured $20m in Series A funding to develop its business. Clients currently include Visit North Carolina, Travel Alaska, and the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau. The new funding was led by Arthur Ventures, a Minneapolis-based venture capital firm, with participation from Peterson Partners. Zartico has raised $24.5m to date and, since its March 2020 launch, claims over 180 customers. “The visitor economy contributes 10% to the global GDP, yet it is one of the last to embrace big data and analytics, relying instead on quarterly and yearly reports that are almost instantly outdated,” said Sarah Lehman (pictured), CEO, Zartico. “By layering and analysing rich datasets, we provide some of the world’s most popular destinations with insight into where their visitors are coming from and the attractions driving the most interest, enabling them to better market, and more importantly, manage their visitor economy more effectively.” Zartico’s integrated data model™ offers its customers anonymised geolocation, spend and event data for visitors and destinations in real-time. By layering this proprietary data on top of both customer data (CRM systems, social platforms, etc.) and publicly-available data (jobs, TSA, etc.), Zartico says its Destination Operating System® version 3.0. is able to provide a comprehensive view of visitor behaviour and activity. “Smart destinations represent an $18bn market and the company that can provide the most detailed and actionable data around diverse visitor economies will surely capture this massive opportunity,” said Ryan Kruezinga, general partner at Arthur Ventures and new Zartico board member. Zartico’s new financing will be used to grow its engineering and product teams, expand its machine learning, AI and predictive capabilities, acquire new proprietary data sets and expand into new markets such as sports venues, airports and municipalities. The company said it anticipates a 70% jump in its headcount in the next six months. “When we started working with Zartico we were hungry for real-time data that could tell us which areas of our state have the greatest opportunity for growth and how our visitor economy can support the state’s economy,” said Wit Tuttell, director of Visit North Carolina. More information visit www.zartico.com