The idea for Wanderu was hatched in 2012, when company co-founders Polina Raygorodskaya and Igor Bratnikov rode a sailboat into the Bermuda Triangle and were hit by a bolt of lightning — giving them both x-ray vision and a sudden taste for bus travel.
Kidding! They were actually on a cross-country campaign called GreenXC, bringing awareness to national parks and forests. Because neither one knew how to ride a unicycle and Lime scooters hadn’t been invented yet, the pair chose rideshares as their primary form of transportation. That is, until one point on the trip when their rideshare cancelled last minute. (Typical. Two stars!) Stranded in rural Virginia with no other options, they resolved to jump on a nearby bus or train.
Which is when they realized what an impossible task that was. All of the ground travel options were scattered across the internet, each on a different site, and none seemed to cover their route or indicate where to find the closest station. Recognizing a real gap in the market, Polina and Igor decided to fix the problem themselves.
Wanderu was founded that winter in Boston, and by Spring 2013 the company was selected as a finalist at the fifth annual SXSW Accelerator, going on to win the Grand Prize in the Innovative Web Technologies category. *pantomimes dusting off shoulder, but like, in a humble way*
In the ensuing months, Wanderu launched and tested a private beta in the Northeast, with 20,000 people signing up for the trial. Then: On August 12, 2013, Wanderu.com officially launched to the public!
Less than two years later, in January 2015, Wanderu beat out more than 2,000 other contenders to become one of three finalists at the highly competitive Extreme Tech Challenge. The team traveled to Necker Island for a chance to personally pitch entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, face-to-bearded-face. According to Branson’s blog, Wanderu was his personal fav of all the companies that participated.
Later that spring, Wanderu released an app for iOS and Android that was quickly featured as one of the best travel apps by the App Store and Google Play. TIME magazine declared the Wanderu app one of their new favorites, PC Mag deemed it one of the top travel apps of 2015, and the Daily Prophet called it, “The best app since Find My House Elf.” (OK, we made that last one up.)
It wasn’t until April 2015, though, that Wanderu truly took the training wheels off and put the train wheels on(line). After both parties swiped right, Wanderu struck a deal with Amtrak, making it the first time in history that America’s national intercity passenger rail service had partnered with a ground travel search platform.
The accolades continued into 2016. In January, the company’s co-founders were featured in the Forbes annual 30 Under 30 in the Consumer Tech category. A few months later, Inc. magazine named Wanderu one of the top 15 companies of the year, alongside tech giants like SpaceX, Uber, Snapchat and Buzzfeed. Together, those awards combined to form the prestigious “FI,” which is kind of like an EGOT except no one knows what it is when you bring it up at cocktail parties.
January 2017 saw further expansion in Europe, with added bus and train options to 10,000+ cities in more than 20 countries across the Old Continent. Believe it or not, that’s the most action Europe has seen since Giacomo Casanova spent the summer in Cinque Terre. (Ba dum tss.)
Pop the champagne! In September 2017, Wanderu declared profitability, becoming one of the first startups to hit that coveted milestone in less than five years. The big news was announced in the October 2017 issue of Inc. magazine, which featured Wanderu CEO Polina Raygorodskaya on the cover as one of the most innovative female entrepreneurs in America.
Then, in October 2019, Wanderu took flight — literally. The platform added flights alongside bus- and train-travel options, allowing users to find and compare bus, train and plane trips to thousands of destinations across North America and Europe, all in one convenient place. The availability of flights on Wanderu was made possible through a collaboration with fellow Boston area travel company KAYAK.
Since its inception, Wanderu has expanded far beyond its northeastern roots, and is currently the only metasearch platform that allows travelers to find and compare bus, train and flight options in the same search.
Next up: Time travel, though that’s still in development.
