GetYourGuide nabs $194M for global expansion, more AI development

Tours and activities online booking platform GetYourGuide has closed $194 million in equity and credit financing and plans to use the funding to expand in key markets and to accelerate product innovation – including extensive work with generative artificial intelligence.

The financing comes in the form of $85 million in Series F funding led by Blue Pool Capital with participation from KKR and Temasek and a revolving credit facility of $109 million led by Unicredit with participation from BNP Paribas, Citibank and KfW.

The company said the round represents a “valuation increase” but would not disclose a figure. 

“In the current market, we view this as a vote of confidence from our investors who share our mission of unlocking unforgettable memories for travelers around the globe,” said Johannes Reck, CEO and co-founder of GetYourGuide.

“We are still early in the transformation of our category and the larger $1.5 trillion experiences market. And our technology is poised to help drive innovation and growth for our partners and customers alike.”

A key part of that innovation strategy will involve the use of artificial intelligence and large language models.

Last week GetYourGuide launched a plugin for ChatGPT, which enables users of the OpenAI platform to access suggestions of experiences that match their preferences.

But chief technology officer Udi Nir said the plugin is just one part of the company’s strategy for using generative AI, a strategy that has been developing since OpenAI released ChatGPT in November.

The efforts are focused on using the technology to help GetYourGuide’s three key stakeholders – travelers, supply partners and team members.

For travelers, GetYourGuide wants to make it easier to sift through details about the more than 75,000 activities available in its marketplace.

“We have lots of information about activities, points of interest and destinations. Some from suppliers, some from influencers, some from reviews - and in the future other user-generated content - and some our own,” Nir said.

“Imagine if generative AI could make truly personalized recommendations, summarize key reviews and ratings of each tour and even generate real examples using images and video. Suddenly, instead of spending hours researching and reading, a traveler can spend just a few minutes deciding how they’ll spend their holiday.”

To help supply partners such as tour operators and experience creators grow their businesses, Nir said GetYourGuide is developing ways to use generative AI to help them be more effective at content management and to drive more bookings with reduced manual work.

“Experiments are still early days here, but this is a key area of focus for us,” he said.

And for its internal operations, GetYourGuide is using AI to boost efficiency.

“As an example, we have been leveraging GitHub Copilot since it launched [as] an AI assistant for coding that helps our team be more productive,” Nir said. 

GetYourGuide said its data confirms that the travel experience category is growing, in part due to a shift in consumer preferences to spend on experiences over traditional retail goods, particularly among younger generations. The company said its booking volumes in the first quarter of 2023 were close to four times the volume of the first quarter of 2019.

“There is immense opportunity in the digitization of the experiences industry, and we believe GetYourGuide’s worldwide leadership and customer-centricity in the category stems from its deep expertise in this complex space,” said Oliver Weisberg, CEO of Blue Pool Capital. 

“We believe they are uniquely positioned to be the global leader in the category; we are pleased to lead the equity financing, adding to our existing stake, given the strength of the business.”

In March GetYourGuide relaunched “Originals by GetYourGuide,” after announcing late last year that it was phasing out the initial iteration of the product. 

The new Originals by GetYourGuide is a curated collection of experiences and access that the company said are exclusive to its platform. 

Founded in 2009, GetYourGuide offers activities from more than 16,000 experience creators around the globe. 

Prior to today’s financing, GetYourGuide’s total funding was more than $883 million with its last funding in February 2021 in the form of a revolving credit facility of €80 million.