Clement Wong & Blanca Menchaca in one of the episodes of Start-UP Asia
BeMyGuest, providing tours and activities, has won the Start-UP Asia competition ahead of more than 150 companies, a win the company says positioned it for its latest round of funding amounting to $S1 million.
The inaugural edition of Start-UP, hosted by Channel NewsAsia, aims to nurture and inspire entrepreneurship.
BeMyGuest secured investment from lead investor TNF Ventures, with additional follow on strategic investments from TideSquare (one of the top three Korean online travel agencies), Adrian Ong of Match.com (CEO, singlesnet.com), and Woon Shung Toon (Founder, The Analytics Company and CEO, Cornerstone Asia, acquired by NTT Data), amongst others, which combined to a total seed funding of SG$1 million.
“Being selected as winner of the Start-UP is great validation and the investment round enablesus to continue to build on the solid foundations that we’ve already established as South-east Asia’s market leader in the tours and activities space.”said Clement Wong, CEO of BeMyGuest.
It aims to place its content and booking management technology “into the hands of as many local providers of tours and activities across Asia as possible, to capture the final frontier of online travel distribution – tours and activities,” added Wong.
It will invest to scale its operations regionally and will open a second office in Manila. It will also pursue strategic distribution partnerships with companies “who appreciate the additional monetisation that BeMyGuest can provide”.
“Our ability to increase ancillary revenue for partners who incorporate BeMyGuest tours and activities into their networks is becoming widely recognised.”
The new round of funding will also see leading Asian investors such as Foo Jixun join as Advisor to BeMyGuest. Jixun is a partner at GGV Capital, and serves on the board of directors of Qunar (NASDAQ: QUNR), Youku-Tudou (NYSE: YOKU), Tujia, Grabtaxi, MediaV and Douguo.
“The confidence from such established and experienced investors is confirmation that our business model is on track,” said Blanca Menchaca, Partner and Chief Marketing Officer of BeMyGuest. “We’re changing the way traditional tour agencies do business by providing our partners with free technology to help grow their businesses online and immediately connect with travellers instead of via traditional offline travel agencies.”
“In addition, BeMyGuest’s peer-to-peer model allows locals to reach travellers seeking authentic travel experiences and as a result, contribute to Asia’s collaborative consumption economy,” continued Menchaca.
BeMyGuest’s continued rapid growth has attracted additional industry experienced talent, and the company has strengthened their management team with the following key appointments:
• Sandra Ho, Chief Financial Officer – previously global head of finance at Wego
• Olalla Rey, Director of Partnerships & Revenue Management- previously in charge of hotel contracting of the entire Latin American market at Expedia Inc
• Holger Jehle, Chief Technology Officer – PHD in Computer Science (magna cum laude), from the Technical University of Munich – highly experienced software development expert and mobile developer
