Armed with $200m more, Klook eyes global domination as it steers course to hit $1b in bookings this year
It seems there is no stopping Klook which will go down in Asia’s travel history as the startup that has raised the most in the shortest time. Today, it announced it has closed $200m in Series D funding, bringing its total financing to date to US$300 million. This latest round makes the in-destinat [...]
India-based ‘travel inspiration’ video platform, Trell, raises $1.25M in seed funding
India-based Trell – a millennial-targeted ‘local experience discovery platform’ that engages travellers through short video-based content – has just raised $1.25 million in seed funding, led by Singapore-based BeeNext and Mumbai-based WEH Ventures.
The startup also saw participation fro [...]
After Zanadu, Wu plunges into blockchain and crypto to build Next Gen travel platform. Here’s how he will do it
Having built up Zanadu into China’s premier lifestyle travel platform after a tough but rewarding five years, Zan Wu, together with his co-founder, Dirk Eschenbacher, now wants to create a new startup, Atlas, into “the next generation TripAdvisor and Booking.com combined” using blockchain and [...]
Taiwanese tours & activities platform KKday enters China under Alibaba partnership
Taiwanese tours and activities platform, KKday, is going from strength to strength as it recently announced a new investment from the Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund. The investment details have not been disclosed.
With this, the three-year old startup is collaborating with Alibaba to launch a flagshi [...]
John Brown on succession, startup culture and how AI is part of everything Agoda does
Some might argue that John Brown, the new CEO of Agoda, has a harder job today than Rob Rosenstein, the man whom he recently succeeded and who founded the Thailand-based hotel portal with Michael Kenny in 1998.
After all, back then, it was the early heady days of the Internet, there wasn’t [...]
Game on as LINE enters travel: Key lessons from WIT Japan & North Asia
There we were at WiT Japan & North Asia speaking of the disruption taking place in travel and the day after we wrap up our two-day event comes the news that LINE, Japan’s main messaging app, is getting into travel.
The news release said that LINE Travel “would be a comprehensive travel se [...]
Shoot My Travel victorious at WIT Japan & North Asia 2018 Startup Pitch Grand Finals
Shoot My Travel are this year’s victors of the WIT Japan & North Asia 2018 Startup Pitch, powered by Amadeus.
Shoot My Travel – a global online marketplace that pairs travellers with local photographers – beat two other finalists during the Grand Finals at the Main Stage conference of [...]
WIT Japan & North Asia 2018 Startup Pitch Grand Finalists announced
The results are in and the top three Grand Finalists for this year’s WIT Japan & North Asia Startup Pitch 2018 (powered by Amadeus) have been declared.
Competing for this year’s grand prize of a place at Phocuswright's APAC Innovators of the Year programme at the Phocuswright Conference i [...]
As funding consolidates and channels fragment, small startups will face challenges
One message was clear at the WIT Japan & North Asia Bootcamp which took place in Tokyo today – small startups, especially in the B2C space, will face massive challenges going forward in the battle for user acquisition and funding.
Masahiko Honma, general partner of Incubate Fund, was first [...]
Letter from Tokyo: So who wants to be a Disaster Chef or a Super Chicken?
Last night, I was having dinner at one of the many hole-in-the-wall Japanese restaurants in Tokyo that every traveller likes to boast about discovering when I had a culinary epiphany of sorts.
Based on a recommendation from a local (the best kind there is), this one was called Hanawasabi, serving [...]
