INTRAVEL, the parent company of Delray Beach, Florida host travel agency InteleTravel, announced on October 6, 2026 that it had acquired 40Hammocks, a Honolulu startup that automates hotel bookings for groups such as destination weddings and events.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
INTRAVEL plans to rebuild the software and relaunch it under a new name, Groupr, with a full-featured launch planned for early 2027. The 40Hammocks product stays live in the meantime, and the startup's team has moved over to Groupr, including co-founders Mina Singson-Brightman and Sebastian Borys, who will stay on as board members and partners.
What 40Hammocks built
40Hammocks helps groups that need 10 or more hotel rooms get pre-negotiated rates. Planners can set up custom booking links for guests, track how much of a room block has been filled, secure event space and offer guest perks. Most of its use has come from destination weddings and group events, according to the InteleTravel announcement.
The company started as a pilot focused on O'ahu and then looked to destinations across the US, Hawaii Public Radio reported when it named 40Hammocks among Hawaii startups to watch in 2024. It went through the Cohort 15 programme of Blue Startups, the Honolulu accelerator, where a founder described the idea as coming from work as a destination event expert in Hawaii who saw groups struggle to find shared accommodation.
“Enterprise platforms have ignored the smaller-group market for years. We saw technology that could solve that, a team that understood the problem, and an opportunity to serve an entire segment of the market that's been underserved, including InteleTravel advisors, and advisors and planners everywhere.”
Why InteleTravel is buying
Large corporate groups already use booking platforms, but InteleTravel argues that their licence costs shut out smaller groups. Wedding planners, meeting planners and travel advisors who handle those smaller groups still source hotels, send proposals, negotiate, sign contracts and chase follow-ups by phone and email. That manual work limits how many groups one planner can take on, and Groupr is meant to automate it end to end.
James Ferrara, managing partner of INTRAVEL and chairman of the Groupr board, put the deal alongside InteleTravel's earlier purchase of booking site BusinessTravel.com as part of a push into new markets and AI tools. He said enterprise platforms had ignored the smaller-group segment for years.
Kim Andreello, InteleTravel's senior vice president of strategy and corporate development, will run Groupr as managing director. Andreello also appears alongside the two co-founders in Blue Startups' cohort spotlight on the 40Hammocks team.
Two audiences for Groupr
Groupr is being built for two sets of users at once. It will be sold on the open market to meeting and event planners, wedding planners and independent travel advisors. It will also be built into InteleTravel's existing leisure and business travel platforms for the roughly 145,000 advisors in its network.
Andreello said Groupr would automate the sourcing, proposals, contracts and follow-up that planners have done by hand for decades, so that each planner can manage more groups and serve clients better with the same effort.
Before the relaunch, INTRAVEL plans to keep adding features through the end of 2026, starting with automated sourcing of private event space at restaurants. Over time the plan is to extend the product into automated sourcing, contracting and guest management.
The founders and the funding
Neither company has disclosed outside funding for 40Hammocks, and no rounds or investors appear in public reports. The startup was small: a Techstars job-board listing put it at one to 10 employees, based in Hawaii Kai, Honolulu.
The founders are not leaving. Singson-Brightman and Borys remain with the company as partners and board members of Groupr.
An acquisitive host agency
InteleTravel, founded in 1991, describes itself as a global travel distribution group and host agency. It has bought several businesses in recent years, including corporate travel alliance Hickory Global Partners, meetings and events agency MGME, UK tour operator Major Travel, ticketing and experiences platform Tickitto and BusinessTravel.com.
40Hammocks adds group hotel booking software to that list, aimed at room-block work that planners in the smaller-group segment still do largely by phone and email.
