Tour and activity booking platform BeMyGuest’s total equity funding has increased to S$11.5 million (US$8.5 million) after raising an undisclosed amount from its Series A funding led by Raffles Venture Partners and technology investor Koh Boon Hwee.
SPRING SEEDS Capital, the investment subsidiary of government agency SPRING (Standards, Productivity and Innovation Board) Singapore, Chan Brothers Group, travel industry investors Meng Xiong Kuok and Leland Kwee also participated in the round.
“This Series A is an affirmation of our vision and validation of our business model. We are certain that the quality of our technology, content and customer service will take us through the next phase of growth with an extremely robust partnerships pipeline going live in 2017 and beyond,” said BeMyGuest CEO & founder Clement Wong.
Last year saw the company shift its focus onto its B2B business, putting it on track to reach the target of S$100 million in sales through partnerships with B2C travel companies.
With over 500 distribution partnerships including with Ctrip, Ticket Monster, Tink Labs, Yatra, Tuniu, Alitrip and Travel.jp, BeMyGuest connects players in such key growth markets as China, South Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam and India with over 4,500 suppliers of over 25,000 activities, attractions, day tours, ground transfers and events in over 900 destinations.
“By investing in BeMyGuest, we continue to develop and expand our travel ecosystem alongside capturing different market segments, as we move towards the future of travel that is more efficient and accessible to our customers,” said Anthony Chan, managing director, Chan Brothers Group.
In addition to recognising the startup’s “highly scalable technology platform”, Ted Tan, deputy chief executive, SPRING Singapore and chairman, SPRING SEEDS Capital, said: “Not only does BeMyGuest contribute (to) upgrading the technological capabilities of our local travel agents, it will also increase tourist arrivals by marketing our local attractions.”
Alongside this Series A funding is the launch of BeMyGuest Labs (www.bmglabs.com), a platform allowing suppliers and resellers to leverage BeMyGuest’s distribution network through travel technology solutions. These include supplier inventory push API, multilingual pull API, white labels, B2B agents marketplace, instant confirmation, e-tickets and revenue management.
