This article was updated at 11am BST, 7 June to include anonymous employee feedback
The future of US-based travel booking platform PSNGR1 is in doubt after TMC partners were last week told current activity must be paused amid a funding shortfall.
In the UK, the company had signed a partnership with TakeTwo Travel Solutions last November, and more recently, deals with Gray Dawes Group, Blue Cube Travel and the Focus Travel Partnership.
Three of the organisations confirmed the company had communicated the situation with them. PSNGR1 CEO Chris Moss was approached for comment but no response had been provided at the time of publication.
Warren Dix, chief commercial officer at Gray Dawes, said: “They contacted us last week to say they’ve not secured the funding they needed to continue. It’s a great product and hopefully they’ll secure the investment they need.”
He added: “It came as quite a surprise but we’ve not invested any time or resources in implementing it with any customers so we haven’t lost anything there.”
Focus CEO Abby Penston added: “We’re saddened to hear the news around PSGNR1. We very recently signed an agreement with them but none of our TMC Partners were yet to take the product.”
TakeTwo acknowledged PSNGR1 had been in touch but was awaiting a further update on the situation. Like others BTN Europe spoke with, the TMC has not onboarded any UK-based customers and will continue to work agnostically with other existing booking tool partners.
All organisations that BTN Europe contacted spoke highly of the technology, with one source speculating that the technology could be a compelling purchase for a GDS or TMC that does not have a proprietary booking platform.
According to a PSNGR1 employee that BTN Europe spoke with but wished to remain anonymous, colleagues at the company have been told their jobs are on the line and they must go without pay, but some are continuing to work. "The company is running on fumes until it secures the funding it desperately needs," they said.
They added that employees were told by the company it was “unable to secure a bridge round of funding” and “because of this all employment will be frozen as of 31 May”.
Another employee writing on the Glassdoor review site claimed the company "terminated all employment via a Slack message at 8:54pm on May 31, 2022 with no further communication to the staff".
PSNGR1 landed the People's Choice award at the BTN Group's annual Innovate event last October.