Withlocals, a Dutch travel scaleup raises €8M to expand into more cities

Withlocals, a Dutch travel marketplace lets travellers enjoy cities like a local. The platform connects thousands of travellers every month with verified local hosts. It operates in more than 30 cities across Asia and Europe and offers personalised private tours as well as activities based on their passion such as music, food and sports.

Established in 2013 by Willem Maas in Eindhoven, this travel tech scaleup has now secured €8 million in a Series B funding round led by Keen Venture Partners based in London. Also, its existing investor Inkef Capital participated in the funding round.

The local hosts roped in by Withlocals play an important role in enhancing customer happiness. They show travellers their city and passion.

Aims to improve its services

With the newly raised funding, Withlocals aims to offer end-to-end localisation, continue growing in existing and new cities, strengthen its community of local hosts and offer more experiences. As of now, it is present in over 30 cities in Europe and Asia and it aims to continue expanding its presence to new cities. This is an important step that the scaleup has to take to reach a wider group of customers and hosts. And, this will bring about a transformation in the travel space.

Breaking the language barrier

The investment will also be used to serve customers by letting them booking a tour in their own language. The local guides are crucial and further expansion of the network is one of the cornerstones for further growth.

“The tours and activities segment is booming,” said Withlocals’ CEO Matthijs Keij. “Withlocals offers a welcome alternative to standard tours and skip-the-line tickets with personalized and unique experiences. This new round of funding will help us to connect more people and cultures, to offer a broader and more localized range of experiences and to build a strong community of hosts worldwide.”

“We believe Withlocals is tapping into a large latent demand of ‘experiential depth’ for travelling that breaks away from the cookie-cutter mould of holiday offerings,” said Robert Verwaayen, General Partner at Keen. “With great momentum, the company is able to pull off a paradox: delivering uniquely personal experiences at scale.”

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