Gidsy just raised $1.2M Seed Investment from Sunstone Capital together with W. Vogels (CTO of Amazon), Index Capital and Ashton Kutcher.
“Gidsy is exploring, booking and offering unique things to do,” CEO Edial Dekker tells WebProNews. “We launched in Amsterdam, NYC and Berlin eight weeks ago and are aimed to replace the Lonely Planet by answering the question ‘what to do’.”
Gidsy describes itself as “a marketplace for authentic experiences.” It lets users book and offer various kinds of activities. Here’s a bit more of the site’s description:
Think unique walking tours guided by locals, nature hikes with wild cavemen and exclusive pop-up restaurants hosted by top chefs.
If you are an organizer you can create a listing for an activity by providing descriptions, photos and other details. When you have scheduled some events in your activity calendar, people can book these activities through Gidsy’s payment system.
Gidsy does not function as an agent or ensurer, but only enables a contract between someone booking an activity and someone hosting an activity.
“The investors are joining Alex Ljung from Soundcloud and Matt Stinchcomb from Etsy, who helped finance the company through the first phase,” Dekker notes, adding that they’re planning to launch in LA soon.
“This year will be big for us,” Dekker says. “We’re focused on expanding, growing the community and we have a lot of exciting features in the pipeline.”
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