Withlocals is a Dutch travel marketplace that allows travellers to enjoy cities like locals. Its platform connects tens of thousands of travellers each month with verified local hosts in over 30 cities across Europe and Asia, and offers personalised private tours and activities at scale based on travellers’ passions, such as food, music and sports.
Founded in 2013 in Eindhoven, the startup has just raised an €8 million Series B funding round led by London-based Keen Venture Partners, with participation from existing investor Inkef Capital.
“We believe Withlocals is tapping into a large latent demand of ‘experiential depth’ for traveling that breaks away from the cookie-cutter mould of holiday offerings,” said Robert Verwaayen, General Partner at Keen. “With great momentum the company is able to pull off a paradox: delivering uniquely personal experiences at scale.”
Withlocals’ hosts play a massively important role when it comes to customer happiness (9.8 out of 10 average), because the hosts go above and beyond to show travellers their city and their passion, from food to street art, music, and sports. As one of Withlocals’ customers put it: “I’ve been traveling all my life, but Withlocals made me see what traveling is all about.”
“The tours and activities segment is booming,” said Withlocals’ CEO Matthijs Keij. “Withlocals offers a welcome alternative to standard tours and skip-the-line tickets with personalized and unique experiences. This new round of funding will help us to connect more people and cultures, to offer a broader and more localized range of experiences and to build a strong community of hosts worldwide.”
The new funding will be used to offer end-to-end localisation, strengthen the community of local hosts, continue the growth in existing and new cities and offer more experiences based on people’s passions.
Withlocals is currently present in 30 cities across Europe and Asia and will continue to expand its presence in those cities and in parallel open up new destinations. This is an important step to reach a larger group of customers and hosts and in the long run make a meaningful impact in the tours and activities space.
