Origin raised $5M to plan workcations with machine learning and curators (interview)

Origin is a luxury travel app that creates fully personalized trips with expert human support, built on machine learning tuned to the user's interests, values and connections.

ML personalization plus human curators can remove the planning burden for premium travelers — starting with workcations, where slow Wi-Fi ruins the trip.

Over $5 million raised, including a December 2021 seed, from Project A and Cavalry Ventures with angels David Rosenthal, Brad Klingeberg and John Johnson (self-reported in the interview).

Eli Bressert, who led Siri platform science and insights at Apple after data science roles at Convoy, Netflix and Stitch Fix, co-founded Origin with Tamar van de Paal during lockdowns, betting travelers would pay to hand off planning complexity.

Origin launched a 'Where Can I Go' feature to navigate COVID-era restrictions by user preference, and formalized workcations as a product: trips of seven days or more with curators selecting hotels meeting criteria like floor-to-ceiling windows, a wide desk, at least 100Mbps Wi-Fi property-wide, 24-hour room service and a stocked coffee station, plus morning wellness sessions before work blocks. Clients ranged from weekend-plus-work getaways to 40-day trips, the founders said.

Remote work turned a week of vacation into a week-plus of travel with a desk in it — a trip type with no playbook.

Planning complexity, not desire, was the constraint: two to three days of booking work per travel week.

Human curators catch what algorithms miss — changing regulations, cancellations — and justify premium pricing.

The founders' machine-learning pedigree at Apple, Netflix and Stitch Fix is the credibility behind personalization claims.

Ride the fresh behavioral crack, not just the trend: remote work created travelers whose trip has a desk in it — a segment generic agencies never designed for.

As of June 19, 2022, Origin was focused on the premium market with its seed behind it, weighing the right moment for a Series A and building an internal AI platform for its curators and partners.