Skift Take
Two success stories this week: Last year Klook helped travelers book more than five million attractions and activities, making it Asia's booking leader. Meanwhile, major airlines have been adding LocusLabs' maps to their apps at a torrid pace.
Each week we create a roundup of travel startups that have received or announced funding that week. The total amount raised this week was more than $33.5 million.
>>Hong Kong travel technology startup Klook, which runs a website and mobile application offering up to 50-percent-off discounts on about 10,000 travel attractions, tours, and activities in Asia, will speed up its global roll out after raising $30 million in a Series B round, led by Sequoia Capital China. Existing investors who re-upped include Matrix Partners and Welight Capital.
“Klook has expanded to a staff count of over 200 across eight offices in Asia and recorded over five million annual trips booked in 2016,” says co-founder and COO Eric Gnock Fah.
Asia-focused Klook, a shorthand for “Keep Looking,” says it helped travelers with five million trips last year and that it has more than 200 employees. It has previously raised $6.5 million over two rounds. It powers travel services on WeChat, the messaging service. It hopes to IPO in 2020.
>>LocusLabs, a San Francisco-based company that’s creating centimeter-accurate indoor models of more than 70 airports worldwide, has received a $3.5 million Series A round. Investors include SITA, the research-and-development arm of the airline industry, and Acorn Pacific Ventures of Silicon Valley.
Earlier this month, Delta added LocusLabs’s wayfaring service to its FlyDelta mobile app to help passengers find their ways around airports. Where Google Maps does offer basic floor plans, LocusLabs focuses more on ‘things’ than places, such as where the mailboxes or ATMs are. The company says it uses “a reality capture system consisting of depth cameras, lasers, and other sensors to produce interior maps with thousands of places, products, and things.”
Founded in 2015, LocusLabs has already had its service added inside a dozen of the world’s largest airline and airport apps, such as the apps of American Airlines, United Airlines, and Lufthansa. The company’s aim is to provide its mapping services across mobile, IoT, robotics, and augmented reality for thousands of spaces beyond airports.
Check out our previous startup funding roundups, here.
The Daily Newsletter
Our daily coverage of the global travel industry. Written by editors and analysts from across Skift’s brands.
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Tags: funding, startups, vcroundup
Photo credit: The founders of Hong Kong-based travel tech company Klook. They plan to speed up the startup's global expansion after raising $30 million from its Series B round, led by Sequoia Capital China. Klook