Banks have long struggled with outdated travel portals, costly to build, slow to deploy, and nearly impossible to customise. The result is generic platforms that look the same, function the same, and drain millions in investment before delivering meaningful returns.
Odynn is challenging that status quo. Often described as the “Shopify for loyalty and travel,” the company enables banks and fintechs to launch fully branded, personalised travel portals in a matter of weeks, not years.
Today, it announced a $9.5 million seed round led by Bonfire Ventures and co-led by Fiat Ventures, marking a significant step in its expansion. The company told TFN that “Total fundraising is $9.5 million, and this is Odynn’s first VC round.”
Replacing legacy infrastructure with modular agility
Odynn replaces travel platforms with a single codebase architecture built for modular deployment. Banks can create unique branded experiences using configurable components rather than custom rebuilds. Continuous platform improvements benefit every partner automatically, ensuring the user experience evolves without disruptive overhauls.
The economics are equally striking. Upfront investment drops by 95%, with no ongoing maintenance fees. Launch timelines shrink to two to eight weeks, compared to the 18-plus months typical of legacy providers. Reliability improves too, with faster issue resolution and real-time performance monitoring.
Built-in analytics enable rapid iteration, allowing banks to refine offers and user journeys based on live data instead of guesswork. The company stated, “Odynn has demonstrated uplifts over major legacy OTA solutions: 108% increase in travel portal visits, 2.24x increase in total travel bookings, and 364% increase in travel points redemptions.”
The founders behind the platform
Odynn was founded by John Taylor Garner, Anuj Patel, and Bruce Garner in 2022. Sharing their background, Odynn told us, “Anuj is an AI/ML specialist who developed LLMs at PwC before earning his master’s degree in computer science at UPenn. He built his first loyalty company, Card Curator, a B2C mobile app, with John and Bruce.”
“John Taylor is an algorithm expert who ran the International Macro Cross-Asset Volatility book at Merrill Lynch. He built the core system for both Card Curator and Odynn and launched Odynn at Wharton, where he earned his MBA.”
“Bruce Garner is a financial institution veteran who has scaled teams from 0 to over 200 employees at most bulge-bracket banks around the world, including Bankers Trust, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, and RBC. He holds an MBA from Cornell and was CRO for Demex, a Series B insurtech startup he took through Seed and Series A.”
Expanding the travel and loyalty ecosystem
Odynn has partnered with Wildfire, Plusgrade, and Duffel, and counts customers such as ANZ Bank, Flight Centre, Bilt Rewards, Curve, Loop, and Fasten Rewards. Looking ahead, the roadmap is ambitious.
Detailing on its plan for the next 12 months, the company stated, “Odynn will be expanding travel offerings in car rentals, luxury hotel special offers, travel insurance, transferable loyalty, and expanded SMB/SME offerings.”
How about diversity?
On team culture and diversity, the company added, “We are a team of 32 and our executive team, which is comprised of several diverse backgrounds, reflects the values we hold at every level of this company.”
“Every executive knows their travel partner isn’t cutting it. The portals are slow, the customer service is subpar, and the customer experience is unsatisfying, which leads to low engagement,” said Odynn founder and CEO John Taylor Garner. “We built Odynn to be the alternative we wished existed, one that finally allows financial institutions to deliver the personalised, transparent booking experience their customers expect.”
“What struck us about Odynn wasn’t just the technology, it was seeing banks and large financial institutions using Odynn to unlock and drive significant revenue and value from their travel programs again”, said Mark Mullen, co-founder and Managing Partner of Bonfire Ventures. “When you’re serving customers from fintechs to multi-billion-dollar banks like ANZ, and they’re all seeing these metrics, you know you’ve tapped into something that is an infrastructure need and what the market desperately wants.”
“When financial institutions can deploy personalised travel experiences in weeks instead of years, everything changes,” said Shawn Conahan, CRO of Wildfire. ”Odynn’s technology enables the kind of flexible, data-driven travel loyalty solutions that financial institutions have been asking for in the travel sector. They’re creating experiences that keep customers engaged with their financial institution as consumers seek more personalised and flexible ways to get value from their loyalty programs.”
