36Kr Exclusive | "Klook" Completes a New Round of $100 Million Financing, the First Large Financing in the Tourism Industry in 2025

Text｜Ren Cairu

Editor｜Qiao Qian

36Kr has learned that the travel experience platform "Klook" has recently completed a new round of financing of $100 million (approximately 720 million yuan), led by Vitruvian Partners. This round of financing will be used for the next stage of growth and innovation, including enhancing the customer experience, merchant operational efficiency, and internal production efficiency through the deepening application of AI technology, as well as working with tourism bureaus in various parts of the Asia-Pacific region to create more community value, etc.

Klook is a company that 36Kr has been continuously following. It is the leading experience and travel service platform in the Asia-Pacific region, covering businesses such as scenic spot tickets, local entertainment, and transportation (railway tickets/chartered buses/car rentals).

2025 marks the 11th year since Klook was founded. Up to now, the company has completed 8 rounds of financing, with a cumulative amount of over $1 billion. Behind it are a group of star institutions such as Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital, Boyu Capital, Goldman Sachs, and SoftBank - the earliest round was $5 million from Matrix Partners in 2015, and the most recent financing before this round was the $210 million Series E+ in December 2023.

Klook was co-founded by Lin Zhaowei, Wang Zhihao, and Xiong Xiaokang in Hong Kong. The former two are from investment banks, while Xiong Xiaokang is from a technical background. In 2014, the pain points that Lin Zhaowei and Wang Zhihao experienced during a trip to Nepal became the opportunity for the establishment of Klook - at that time, after a period of development in the online travel industry, air tickets and hotel products had basically achieved standardization, but there was a lack of various destination information that further determined the travel experience, and it was also difficult to make reservations for in-depth travel activities before the trip.

The three founders of Klook

Similarly, users of in-depth independent travel abroad often hope to obtain a truly localized experience, such as local branch transportation such as the Shinkansen in Japan, special activities such as helicopter glacier exploration or hiking on Indonesian volcanoes, and small but local-flavored restaurants, etc. Many of these projects could only be booked by phone before, with serious language barrier problems, etc. The imbalance between the existing supply and personalized demand has created an opportunity for Klook.

"Discovering" good products with differences has become an important step to break the status quo.

Currently, Klook's global supply chain network has reached more than 2,700 destinations, providing more than 500,000 kinds of products and activity options. Lin Zhaowei, CEO and co-founder of Klook, said, "Klook has become the preferred platform for Asian entertainment experiences and service reservations in ten years, reconfiguring the connection between travelers and destinations."

According to 36Kr, Klook has a local BD team of hundreds of people worldwide. "Only through local operations can we obtain the most comprehensive and in-depth products." Taking Japan, which is highly popular for travel, as an example, in addition to Universal Studios Osaka and Tokyo Disneyland, Klook has also launched necessary transportation service products such as JR Pass and the Shinkansen in recent years, about 100 Michelin-starred restaurants in Japan, as well as shopping center coupons, tea ceremony experiences, sushi-making experiences, etc., achieving a comprehensive coverage of local "eating, drinking, playing, and traveling".

In addition, Klook's "Travel Experience Specialists" (Kreator) are also often mentioned - bringing some people who love traveling and are "super good at playing" to different destinations, allowing them to experience products, provide feedback, and deeply participate in product design, thereby providing products and routes that are more in line with the new generation of travelers.

"Klook" Travel Experience Specialists experiencing the Japanese Kendo course in Kyoto

In terms of business, Klook is often compared with Ctrip, but An Wen, the general manager of the China region, previously said in an interview with 36Kr, "If we must use one word to help users understand our business, it may be more like the 'Asian version of Ctrip + Meituan On-site Services'." In other words, in addition to the most recognized air tickets and hotel businesses of the OTA platform, Klook hopes to deepen the supply chain focus into the more complex local life.

In terms of regions, Asia will continue to be Klook's main business area. According to the Asia-Pacific Tourism Association's 2024-2026 Asia-Pacific Visitor Forecast Report, the number of international tourists traveling to the Asia-Pacific region is expected to increase from 619 million in 2024 to 762 million in 2026, exceeding the 2019 peak.

After this round of financing, Klook has not disclosed the latest performance. But when the previous round of financing was conducted, Klook disclosed its 2023 data - the total order amount reached $3 billion (approximately 21 billion yuan), and it achieved an overall annual profit; the monthly active user count has reached 50 million, and the user base comes from the mainland, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and other parts of the world; in 2023, it contributed $7.2 billion to the GDP of the Asia-Pacific region and created more than 219,000 jobs.

Focusing on the domestic business, An Wen, the general manager of the China region, said that they will continue to focus on the inbound tourism market in China. "With the continuous relaxation of the visa-free entry/transit visa-free policies last year, inbound tourism has increased significantly. We are providing booking services for Chinese tourism activities to tens of millions of overseas Klook users."

In May 2023, Klook was rumored to be planning to go public in the US. Wang Zhihao, the co-founder, responded by saying that "there is no exact timetable yet." In 2024, at the press conference on the tenth anniversary of Klook's establishment, the management once again responded that "the company has a team that has been studying the listing plan, and there are no specific arrangements yet." Now, the strong recovery of the tourism market, combined with the new trend of the material consumption upgrade to the "experience economy", may bring considerable growth space for Klook in 2025.