“Can a travel app become the dominant embedded-fintech layer for the global travel industry?”
Founded 2007 as a travel-planning tool, Hopper pivoted into a flight-price-prediction consumer app in 2014. The real strategic pivot came with the launch of proprietary fintech ancillaries — Price Freeze, Cancel for Any Reason, and Flight Disruption Guarantee — which now contribute the majority of margin. In 2021 Hopper launched HTS (Hopper Technology Solutions), a B2B embedded-travel-and-fintech platform that white-labels its booking engine, checkout, and fintech products for airline, bank, and travel partners — moving the company from consumer OTA to embedded travel-fintech infrastructure.
Hopper processes payments through HTS Checkout (self-operated).
Hopper's lending and capital products are provided by Hopper (in-house fintech ancillaries).
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 2 layers in Hopper's stack: Payments / PSP (HTS Checkout (self-operated)); Lending (Hopper (in-house fintech ancillaries), Price Freeze, Cancel for Any Reason, Flight Disruption Guarantee and 1 other).
Hopper was founded by Frederic Lalonde, Joost Ouwerkerk and Dakota Smith and is founded in 2007, headquartered in Montreal, Canada.
Hopper has raised ~$600M (as of 2021) in total (latest round: Series G, 2021; valuation: $3.5B+ (2021)).
Get a read on where your own stack stands against Hopper and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.