Thayer Ventures’ TourWrist Wins Awards and Investment

TourWrist, a Thayer Ventures Portfolio Company, swept the awards at The Travel Innovation Summit @ The PhoCusWright Conference. The company won The DEMO Award for the Most Game-Changing Innovation, the conference award for The Most Innovative Emerging Company, and The General Catalyst Award for Travel Innovation, which includes $250,000 investment.

PRESS RELEASE

TourWrist, a Thayer Ventures Portfolio Company, swept the awards at The Travel Innovation Summit @ The PhoCusWright Conference, winning The DEMO Award for the Most Game-Changing Innovation, the conference award for The Most Innovative Emerging Company, and The General Catalyst Award for Travel Innovation, which includes $250,000 investment.
TourWrist provides technology that enables consumers to shoot, publish and share 360-degree panoramic images via smartphones, tablets and computers; and helps travel brands effectively market products, properties and destinations via stunning virtual images.
“We are delighted and honored to have won these awards from our peers and industry experts,” said Charles Armstrong, Founder and CEO of TourWrist. “Doing so in partnership with Thayer Ventures, our first venture capital investor, makes the recognition especially exciting.”
Thayer Ventures funds innovative emerging technology companies in the $10 trillion global travel and hospitality industry. TourWrist is one of ten emerging technology brands that comprise the Thayer Ventures portfolio of companies. A complete listing of the companies is available at http://www.thayerventures.com.
Chris Hemmeter, Managing Director of Thayer Ventures, said, “We are delighted to recognize TourWrist’s dominant performance at The PhoCusWright Conference this year and are excited to work with Charles as he executes his strategy in the travel and hospitality space.”
He concluded, “TourWrist is a winning example of our approach to investing, which is to partner with and support technology companies that are revolutionizing the travel industry.” “The progress we have made, just since June, validates our approach and vision as we begin the investing cycle with our second fund.” 
Building a Peerless Advisory Board
Thayer Ventures is the only venture capital firm specifically focused on emerging technology companies in the travel and hospitality industry — its deep knowledge and unrivaled relationships enable it to provide unmatched value to technology entrepreneurs.
In the past two months, Thayer Ventures has also added a unique group of travel and hospitality leaders to its Industry Advisory Board. The additions include:
Barry Sternlicht, Founder and CEO of Starwood Capital Group
Don Carty, Former CEO of American Airlines
Greg Dollarhyde, CEO of The Veggie Grill
Jim Abrahamson, CEO of Interstate Hotels
Tom Klein, President of Sabre Holdings
Chuck Floyd, COO-North America of Hyatt Hotels Corporation
Paul Brown, President of Hilton Worldwide
Hemmeter said, “We are delighted to welcome this distinguished group of advisors and investors to the Thayer Ventures Industry Advisory Board. We are grateful for their partnership, and support.”
The Industry Advisory Board not only represents investors in the firm, but also significant sources of deal flow, due diligence capabilities, and top supplier relationships for portfolio companies. The Thayer Ventures Industry Advisory Board is expected to grow further in the months ahead.
About Thayer Ventures
Thayer Ventures is the only venture capital firm specifically focused on the hospitality industry. Since its founding in 2009 as Quest Hospitality Ventures, the firm has partnered with entrepreneurs to create, develop and build technology companies that will revolutionize the hospitality industry. Based in San Francisco, Thayer Ventures currently supports some of the world’s leading travel technology companies, including Hipmunk, hotelme.com, Nor1, Adara Media, Duetto Research, newBrandAnalytics, and ID90T. Additional information is available on the company’s website: http://www.thayerventures.com.
About TourWrist
TourWrist is the world’s leading virtual tour platform. The company employs a model similar to YouTube (but uniquely suited to panoramic virtual tours). The company mission is to improve how consumers make educated, location-based travel decisions. ‘TourWrists’ can easily shoot and upload their own panoramic images, or browse and share any of the 55,000+ geo-tagged panos already uploaded. The global TourWrist platform (apps, mobile web and website) is on track to reach tens of millions of travelers in 2013, complete with localization for many major languages.