Klook nets $30m series B from Sequoia to grow hottest sector in travel

Photo credit: yanlev / 123RF.

Tours and trips are perhaps the hottest part of the travel industry right now – as evidenced by an Airbnb acquisition last year before the tech giant rolled out its own Trips service.

Eric Gnock Fah has been in the space since before it was cool. When he started Klook in early 2014 with two other co-founders, the crew wanted to fill in the bits not covered by all the flight and hotel-booking sites – the actual fun part of the holiday. So they started connecting with tour and experience providers around the world, giving users an easy way to book, say, a ride on the “Sagano Romantic Train” through cherry orchards in Kyoto, or a New York helicopter ride.

The service, which saw 5 million bookings in 2016, now covers 80 destinations around the world. Most of its users are in Asia, Eric tells Tech in Asia.

His Hong Kong-based startup today announced US$30 million in series B funding led by the venerable Sequoia Capital. It comes just over 16 months after the team’s US$5 million series A.

“We want to grow our market share not only in existing markets where we’re currently quite strong, which is Hong Kong, Taiwan, and to some extent Singapore, but this money will be used to open up new markets and really grow in Southeast Asia,” he says.

Hailing the startup as “a proven leader in Asia,” Sequoia Capital China founder Neil Shen says Klook has serious “scale advantage” in the otherwise “highly fragmented in-destination sector.”

The two co-founders, Eric Gnock Fah (left) and Ethan Lin (right). Photo credit: Klook.

Global travel sales booked online was last year are pegged at US$565 billion by Emarketer, rising to US$817 billion by 2020. “Digital travel sales in Asia-Pacific will see the fastest growth throughout the forecast,” said the analysts, putting Eric’s startup right at the center of the action.

New travelers

“2017 is where we’ll really go deep-dive into all the meaningful markets in Asia. Thailand will be launching very soon,” Eric adds, referring to a local language version of the site. “And then Indonesia. Korea we just did. Japan will be [later]. And then India.”

It’s also operating in mainland China.

He doesn’t see Airbnb as a big threat for now as it’s focusing on a “very curated” selection of “quite expensive” experiences.