With Indian co-founders and investors, US-based booking site Headout just raised $1.8M

Just a day after Mygola got acquired by MakeMyTrip, Headout, another last minute mobile marketplace for tours, activities, and experiences, raised a seed round of US$1.8 million from India’s Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, and Goqii’s Vishal Gondal. Headout is one of the few US-based global consumer startups founded by Indian entrepreneurs.

Other investors in the round include US-based Nexus Venture Partners, 500 Startups, Version One Ventures, Arena Ventures, Maiden Lane Ventures, Funders Club, Haystack Fund, Ludlow Ventures, Dreamit Ventures, among others.

Headout’s app helps travelers discover and book events and local experiences. The app is currently live in New York and Las Vegas. The fresh funds will be used to expand to 12 cities including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, Miami, and more in the US before year’s end.

“Our mission at Headout is to be the go-to app whenever you find yourself in a new city – be it New York, Paris, Cape Town, or Beijing. This round of funding is a step in that direction,” says Varun Khona, co-founder and CEO of Headout.

See: India’s MakeMyTrip acquires last-minute travel booking app Mygola

Its rival Mygola is present in 16 cities around the world including Las Vegas, Bangalore, Bangkok, Dubai, Hong Kong, and more.

But that doesn’t bother Khona. He says that Headout can catch up with Mygola in terms of cities as “their growth will now be slowed down while integrating the product with Makemytrip.”

“Mygola is focused a lot more on planning where you can book two weeks in advance. We focus only on bookings that are less than a day in advance. We monetize unsold and perishable inventory of city events,” explains Khona.

The company takes a 20 percent commission on every transaction. The 10-month-old startup was launched in New York and claims to serve guests from more than 65 countries. Headout is a part of the recent 500 Startups accelerator batch in Mountain View.