Special Report: Investors boycott tours and activities as peer-to-peer shakeout looms

This is part three of our three-part series on the online tours and activities market, focusing on the buzz around venture-backed startups in the space. Here is Part One and Part Two. Tours and activities is a sector still trying to prove it is a viable market, and venture capital for the most part is sitting on the sidelines. Earlier this year five-year-old GetYourGuide raised a $14 million Series A round from Spark Capital and Highland Capital Partners Europe, and that created some excitement. But in recent years just 11 tours and activities companies have announced seed or venture capital funding of $1 million or greater, Skift has found, with these companies raising a total of $65.6 million. That funding includes $20 million for Viator, a tours and activities company founded 18 years ago, that says it is now relying on organic growth. Here are the companies with $1 million or more in funding: COMPANYFUNDINGViator$20 millionGetYourGuide$16.5 millionZozi$10 millionIsango$8 millionMy Destination$2.3 millionStray Boots$2.25 millionSidetour$1.5 millionTriptrotting$1.5 millionPeek$1.37 millionGidsy$1.2 millionTripping$1 million You can get an appreciation of how relatively small that $65.6 million investment is when you consider that travel metasearch company Kayak and fare-search technology company ITA Software raised about $196 million and $100 million, respectively, on their own before making their exits. "I have never thought it was a big enough market to get excited about and jump in," says one experienced venture capitalist. "The investment in tours and activities is in the tens of millions, not the hundreds of millions." There are dozens of companies in tours and activities, and many are trying to prove to would-be inv