France-based Evaneos SA has raised $80 million in growth financing led by Partech and Level Equity. Quadrille Capital also participated in this round. Some of Evaneos’ previous investors include BpiFrance, Serena Capital, and XAnge.
Founded by Eric La Bonnardière and Yvan Wibaux, Evaneos connects travelers with local agents for creating customized travel experiences. Evaneos has served more than 300,000 travelers so far. And Evaneos works with more than 1,200 local agents for setting up multi-day tours such as safaris and sightseeing.
Currently, Evaneos has 180 employees and the company is expecting to hire 70 more people by the end of 2019.
Local agents traditionally connect to consumers through offline travel agency groups. But this is an inefficient and time-consuming process for the local agents. By enabling consumers to browse over 5,000 itineraries and work directly with an agent through the site, it makes the tour process much more seamless. Plus agents can use Evaneos’ software for tailoring the tours.
Evaneos will be using the funding to accelerate growth in several key markets like France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Plus the company is going to use the funding to expand beyond Europe and invest further in technology and content.
The tour and activity market is heating up as Klook raised $200 million in Series D funding last month. And GetYourGuide raised $75 million in funding in October 2017. The founders of Evaneos said that they are more like companies such as Booking.com and Expedia rather than these companies because they provide multi-day itineraries.
“We believe there’s a big gap in the market in the U.S. where online travel agencies mostly offer cookie-cutter options, and there’s a hunger for customization,” said La Bonnardière via Skift.
