Our journey as cofounders started before we knew each other. As children, we sat on opposite sides of the planet dreaming up business ideas; entrepreneurial spirit was alive and thriving in both of us from an extremely young age.
Both of us successfully founded and sold companies in our teens, which held us in good financial stead as we set our sights on the University of Manchester in the U.K. We met there and immediately connected, bonding on an entrepreneurial level. Soon, we were sharing ideas and business theories, an exchange that would lead us to, in January 2022, send a cold-pitch email to a major airline while still only 18 years old—a decision that would change our lives.
Loyalty rewards frustration
Both of us were taking regular flights during our early months at university, flying in from the Isle of Man and India. Naturally, as students, making our transport more affordable was a priority. Airlines host a variety of loyalty programs, all designed to generate user loyalty by offering various discounts and advantages. The issue is that almost nobody is able to benefit from said programs, so no user loyalty is generated.
Like everybody else, we’d head straight to price comparison sites for the cheapest flights available, with little or no thought given to the airline being used.
Given our shared instinct for sniffing out problems in need of a business solution, this quickly caught our attention. How were so many airlines missing the trick here? What could we build that would promote user loyalty among the masses while benefiting the airlines?
The seed of what is today Arcube was planted.
Post-flight perks
And so began our research. Beyond our continued flights in and out of mainland U.K., the two of us started calling airlines and conversing with anyone we could who might give us a nugget of information that would inform a way we could improve the status quo. We soon assessed that only around 5% of flyers are able to make any significant use of loyalty points. Flyers would need to take 20-plus trips in a year to unlock basic perks like priority boarding or lounge access. It’s a non-sensical amount of flying for the vast majority of casual travelers.
After many inquiries and conversations, we reached two conclusions. First, opportunities to promote loyalty post-flight weren’t being used. Most airlines we spoke to didn’t send anything at all to customers once they’d disembarked. Second, ancillaries are a great, low-cost way to bring customers back, but they were only offered pre-flight, after a customer had already picked an airline based on price and flight duration—usually via a price comparison site.
Examples of ancillaries include seat selection, pet transport, and in-flight wi-fi, but there are many more.
The benefit of upselling ancillaries post-flight became obvious to us. It enabled airlines to tailor what they offer based on information gathered both during the flight just taken and from a customer’s past travel history with the airline. Data like, did they pay for seat selection? What did they order to eat? Or even pre-flight information like how long they spent in the security line or what they paid for the flight versus competitor pricing.
The idea really began to take shape. Work began on Arcube, the world’s first post-flight solution for airlines to upsell ancillaries, tailored specifically to the customer via the AI-powered analysis of hundreds of data points. We wanted to offer airlines a way to swap loyalty points (which had become useless for the majority of infrequent flyers) for something that genuinely benefited the bulk of customers and therefore encouraged loyalty.
Making a connection
Using a combination of funds secured through previous exits, grants, and awards, we developed a working product. Next up we needed a user. Who better than Etihad Airways?
We were extremely confident in the idea and the solution we’d built, but we’d be lying if we said there wasn’t an element of surprise when our cold pitch to the London office of Etihad Airways generated a positive response a few days later. It’s the kind of email you send without necessarily having the greatest confidence it’d work, if nothing else, due to the sheer quantity of sales emails they must receive on a daily basis.
It’s safe to say their response and initial interest were a huge signal we were moving in the right direction.
After a reasonably short negotiation period, particularly when dealing with an entity that employs over 10,000 people, the deal was done in June 2022. In the following two years, and during the remainder of our stint at university, the Arcube platform enabled 1,300 Etihad passengers to customize their travel experience, significantly enhancing passenger satisfaction, driving $1.6 million in extra revenue for the airline, and increasing the average customer spend by 10.3%.
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Investors on board
The work with Etihad was a resounding success. It proved the effectiveness of the solution we’d built, and investors took notice in our Manchester-based startup. Now, in February of 2025, we’ve raised a $1.5 million seed round, co-led by Fuel Ventures and Oxford Capital Partners, with participation from the chairman of Pegasus Airlines, among others.
The investment feels like a major step, not only for Arcube, but for both of us as founders. Only a short time ago, we were strangers in different countries dreaming up tech ideas independently from one another. To have the success we’ve had to date, even at this early stage, has been a wonderful experience.
But we’re just getting started.
Airlines and beyond
The funding is already being put to good use, growing the platform and aiding in commercial efforts. We are in conversations with 14 airlines globally.
To be sure, our startup has a long way to go. But it is our view that Arcube has the potential to improve not just the airline industry, but travel industries of all kinds—be it car rentals, cruise lines, hotels, and beyond. Across the board, we want more than just the top 5% of customers to benefit from travel loyalty schemes.
We’re still young—21 years old and fresh out of college—but the proof is in the results already achieved. Airlines have complete belief in the need for Arcube—and we’re convinced that soon, so will the entire travel industry.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
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