GetYourGuide set to hit unicorn status

GetYourGuide is the booking platform for travel experiences. Since its founding in 2009, travelers from more than 155 countries have booked over 15 million tours, activities and attraction tickets through GetYourGuide. The company – a spin-off from ETH Zurich – is still incorporated in Zurich and has more than 400 employees and offices in 14 countries around the world. The main office is in Berlin.

To-date, the company has received more than $170 million in investment. Since January, several media reported about rumours of a major new financing round. Over the weekend “Deutsche Startups” published an article saying that Softbank has invested $500 billion in GetYourGuide. According to another article on TechCrunch, which was published on Monday, a GetyourGuide spokesperson commented that the Deutsche Startups report is inaccurate and the company has not provided information for the article.

Facts about the ongoing financing round
According to the Swiss commercial register, Ted Fike, a partner at Softbank Investment Advisors has joined the GetYourGuide board. In addition, Spark Capital and Queen’s Road Capital are represented. Stephen Shanley, Director at KKR, has left the board. Already in March, Startupticker reported that the Swisscanto Growth Fund invested in GetYourGuide via a secondary transaction. 

In our opinion, the financing round is not definitely closed yet. It involves several investors including Softbank, which will invest a three digit million amount. The valuation will be higher than $1 billion. Hopefully the role model GetYourGuide will motivate more Swiss founders to pursue ambitious growth targets with the ultimate goal of building unicorns.