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Singapore and Hangzhou, 13 July, 2017 - BeMyGuest, Winner of the ‘Best Business Innovation’ award at the Singapore Tourism Awards 2016, today announced the closing of its Series A round of funding led by Raffles Venture Partners and renowned technology investor Mr Koh Boon Hwee with his group of investors. SPRING SEEDS Capital, the investment subsidiary of SPRING Singapore, Singapore’s largest and most established group of travel agencies Chan Brothers Group, and investors from the travel industry Mr Meng Xiong Kuok and Mr Leland Kwee also participated in the round.
This round of investment enables BeMyGuest to further accelerate the company’s rapid growth across Asia, and brings total equity funding to date to S$11.5M ($8.5M). In 2016 the company pivoted to focus on its B2B business, and is on track to reach the target of S$100M ($72M) in sales through existing and new partnerships with many of the largest B2C travel companies
“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.
“The upfront commitment to build a solid scalable digital platform has put BeMyGuest in the front seat for Asian online tour & travel activities. We are pleased to support and be involved in this exciting journey with BeMyGuest, “ said Mr Yap Ning Jee, Raffles Venture Partners. Mr Koh Boon Hwee further commented: “We have been very impressed by the team behind BeMyGuest and are thrilled to have co-led the Series A investment round. BeMyGuest has proven themselves through successfully becoming the largest aggregator of Asian attractions, tours and activities content, and their continued track record in hyper scaling the B2B business. We are confident of the team cementing its position as the category leader.”
The company’s focus has been to serve the highly complex Asian market. With over 500 strategic distribution partnerships including Ctrip, Ticket Monster, Tink Labs, Yatra, Tuniu, Alitrip and Travel.jp, they connect the largest industry players in the highest growth markets across China, Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam, India with over 4,500 suppliers of over 25,000 activities, attractions, day tours, ground transfers and events in over 900 destinations. Most recently, BeMyGuest received the ‘Best Strategic Partner Award 2016’ from Ctrip.
Alongside this Series A funding is the launch of BeMyGuest Labs (www.bmglabs.com), a platform where suppliers and resellers can leverage on BeMyGuest’s vast distribution network through a range of travel technology solutions. These include supplier inventory push API, multilingual pull API, white labels, B2B agents marketplace, instant confirmation, e-tickets, revenue management system and more. Last year BeMyGuest landed a top five position in the travel category in Fast Company’s ‘World’s Most Innovative Companies in 2016’ for their supplier travel technology; alongside Uber and Airbnb, and ahead of travel giants Marriott and the Priceline Group.
“BeMyGuest’s mission has always been to create the largest platform of tours, activities and attractions across Asia, this round will enable our team to continue with their relentless innovation for the sector,” said Blanca Menchaca, BeMyGuest COO & Co-Founder.
“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.
According to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation’s Asia Tourism Trends 2016 report, arrivals in the Asia Pacific region are expected to reach 535 million by 2030, of which 80% being intra-regional travels. The report also said that with the rise of FIT travellers, it has heightened the need for destinations and companies to respond with technological solutions throughout the customer journey.
Phocuswright, a travel research company, revealed at the recent WebInTravel conference in Japan that the Asia Pacific market size for attractions, activities and tours is the largest regional market globally at US$45bn in 2016. The attractions, activities and tours sector is widely regarded as the final frontier in online travel, but with online bookings still accounting for only 11%.
“BeMyGuest has a highly scalable technology platform that is capable of aggregating and distributing Asian tours, attractions and activities to its partners. Not only does BeMyGuest contribute in upgrading the technological capabilities of our local travel agents, it will also increase tourist arrivals by marketing our local attractions to international visitors,” said Mr Ted Tan, Deputy Chief Executive, SPRING Singapore and Chairman, SPRING SEEDS Capital.
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