Much Better Adventures selects Gr4vy to orchestrate payments and support global marketplace growth

Much Better Adventures has chosen Gr4vy’s payment orchestration platform to improve performance, expand payment choice, and support international expansion

As travel marketplaces expand internationally, handling payments across different regions, providers, and local payment methods is becoming harder to manage within a single setup. Against this backdrop, Much Better Adventures, the adventure travel marketplace connecting travelers with expert-led outdoor experiences worldwide, has selected Gr4vy, the cloud-based payment orchestration platform, to modernize its payment infrastructure and support its next phase of expansion.

Operating across Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas, Much Better Adventures offers more than 200 curated, multi-day experiences. The platform focuses on community-led travel while supporting sustainable tourism and local economies. As the business scaled, its reliance on a single acquirer limited flexibility, slowed the rollout of new payment methods, and added operational complexity.

“Travel platforms are under increasing pressure to deliver both performance and resilience at scale,” said John Lunn, Founder and CEO of Gr4vy. “What Much Better Adventures is doing reflects a broader shift. Payments aren’t just an operational layer anymore; they play a direct role in growth. Orchestration lets teams test providers, make changes quickly, and scale without reworking their stack.”

With Gr4vy, Much Better Adventures moves to a multi-provider model and takes control of its payment strategy. With a single integration, the platform can dynamically route transactions, connect to multiple payment providers, and introduce new payment methods without additional development. For customers, this reduces failed transactions and makes checkout faster and more consistent when booking across regions.

Gr4vy also enables Much Better Adventures to expand its payment offering with Pay by Bank and Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) options such as Klarna. By aligning payment methods with local preferences, the company expects to improve authorization rates and conversion, while giving travelers more choice, familiar ways to pay, and greater flexibility when planning their next adventure.

“As a marketplace built on connecting travelers with local experts around the world, the checkout experience is a critical part of the journey,” said Guy Bowden, CTO and Co-Founder at Much Better Adventures. “We needed a solution that could support our global growth while giving our customers more choice, flexibility, and confidence at the point of payment. With Gr4vy, we can deliver a smoother booking experience and adapt quickly to the needs of different markets.”

Alongside this flexibility, Gr4vy’s unified 3D Secure (3DS) orchestration enables dynamic authentication across providers, helping reduce fraud without adding friction at checkout. It also simplifies operations by giving the finance team a single consolidated view of settlements, removing the need for manual, multi-provider reporting. Vaulting capabilities further support more flexible booking models, including add-ons and installment payments, helping increase revenue per customer.

Gr4vy continues to give businesses the flexibility to manage payments on their own terms. This partnership points to a wider shift among travel and marketplace platforms toward taking ownership of their payment infrastructure to better manage complexity and scale across markets.