Eric Gnock Fah and Ethan Lin used to work as investment bankers in London. When they traveled to Nepal and found some inconvenience there, the two immediately take this as a business chance. And launch Klook, which stands for ‘Keep Looking’, in a while later.
The travel was good. But it was not nice having to carry around thousands of dollars in cash. However back in 2013, there were almost no store that accept non-cash payment in Nepal. So they have to pay everything in cash.
This, they see as a business opportunity. Scouting the best software engineer they can find in LinkedIn, they founded Klook together in 2014. A year later, it launch its first mobile app which is available in 14 Apple iTunes store across Asia.
Coincidentally, vice president of Matrix Partner China came across the app. Zhuyan Li then vouch Klook to invest, and become one of the earliest investors of the company. Golfman Sach and Sequoia Capital China are also the earlier investors.
Now Klook has opened around 20 offices around the world with more than 1,000 employees. Including Europe, with offices in Amsterdam, Barcelona and London.
With over 100,000 travel activities and services in 300 cities, it’s website records roughly 30 million visits in a months. The company has joined a partnership with 10,000 vendors around the world.
So what does Klook offer?
Basically it offers only one thing, a pre-paid trip plan. Customers can choose travel activities, restaurants, even transportation from the site and app. As well as paying it beforehand, avoiding a huge expand of budget and the risk of carrying around so many cash.
Smartly, Klook does not include flights and hotel rooms reservation. The two have had many big players that are very advanced.
Yet even without the two features the company still has a $1 billion valuation. Softbank also involved in funding the company at its latest funding round, leading the $225 million investment.
With around 35% of its customers from the Greater China, Kloo does not want to challenge the local players such as Ctrip. Instead it focuses on the outbound business.
