Technology platform Tern said it has raised $13 million in Series A funding led by Viewpoint Ventures and Haystack VC, with continued participation from Upfront Ventures, which previously contributed an unannounced $4 million.
The Tern platform, in use by more than 5,000 advisors and more than 1,000 travel agencies, has customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities as well as proposal, itinerary, payment and communication management.
This month, Tern introduced a number of new features, including agentic AI to import content from any source; one-click invoicing; AI destination guides and packing lists; custom branding; forms; trip activity view; and activity template folders.
"We built Tern to eliminate the invisible work that slows advisors down -- the quoting, the copy-pasting, the tool-switching," CEO David Shull said. "This funding gives us the ability to move faster and go deeper, so advisors can spend less time in tools and more time with clients."
The company will use its latest round of investment to deepen its use of AI, expand payment capabilities, strengthen its tools, launch seven-day support availability and invest in its onboarding process and education.
"Travel advisors have been overlooked and underserved by technology for years," said Nick Kim, a partner at Upfront Ventures. "We backed Tern because we learned how important advisors are in travel. Rather than cut out advisors, Tern celebrates them, and we are all-in on their vision to build the best platform in the world for these critical decision-makers."