Ex-Snappcar co-founder raises €1.25M from Silicon Valley for his new travel tech startup Soulpicks

Based in Amsterdam, Soulpicks is a mobile app that helps users discover, share and collect the places. In a recent development, Soulpicks which is a new venture of ex-Snappcar’s co-founder  has secured €1.25 million in the pre-seeding round.

The funding was led by Jasper Hauser, founder of software company Sofa, Henri de Jong, founder of hosting provider Mijndomein and Martijn Leenaers, former CFO of payment processor Payvision. With the Soulpick app, travelers can automatically share their journey with friends and family.

Pascal Ontijd, said:

For us, the product now has absolute focus. That’s why we don’t outsource that. With our team of developers, we will serve the fans of Soulpicks as well as possible. We will then continue to invest in communities such as Utrecht and Amsterdam.

Michael Birch, one of the first investors in Pinterest, will play an advisory role for the leisure app.

Soulpicks – How does it work?

Available on both Android and iOS, users can store, organise and share places or experiences with friends and acquaintances within a closed community. Besides, users can choose to follow several experts in the field of travel, lifestyle, food or leisure and thus gain insight into their favourite places and experiences.

At present, there are about twenty experts associated with Soulpicks, including wine connoisseur Robin van Bastelaar (De Librije), Tanja Klein Nijenhuis (owner of Restaurant Herberg Onder de Linden), cocktail expert Tess Posthumus and fashion photographer Sophie van der Perre.

“The complete absence of advertisers in combination with the optimal safeguarding of privacy through encryption of the data makes Soulpicks the alternative for TripAdvisor, Lonely Planet and Facebook, among other things,” the company says.

Survival of the fittest

The travel market is heavily crowded, and it is not an easy deal to survive unless you are different and capable. Soulpicks competes directly with several biggies including Lonely Planet, Trip advisor and homegrown rival Polarsteps.

Stay tuned to Silicon Canals for more updates in the tech startup world.

https://siliconcanals.com/news/10-cool-irish-ai-scaleups-to-watch-in-2019/