Local knowledge travel startup Locish has raised $820k to fund a pivot into a question-and-answer service for local experiences.
The mobile startup (TLabs here) originally launched from Greece, and offered users the ability to connect to local experts to find nightlife or food within a set distance around them.
The company is making a bit of a pivot, leaning into the question-and-answer component of the service. This more clearly defines the value proposition for users, so they understand that the process is "ask a question about something to do and get an answer."
The new interface encourages answers from "like-minded people," and also opens it up to locals.
Users will ask a question related to cafes, bars, clubs and restaurants, and send it out to the community at large.
Responses will come in and users can find a place specifically targeted to them via the company's matching algorithm. The idea is to ensure that the suggestions are more accurate when delivered by someone more clearly connected to the user - ie. a like-minded person.
The financing round comes in at $820k, and was led by the Odyssey Jeremy Partners fund alongside Jeremy Open Fund II and three Silicon Valley angel investors.
In the announcement, the startup's CEO Grigoris Zontanos points to the pivot as the driver for the financing:
We are delighted to have successfully raised that much money and gained our investors’ trust. The seed funding came at a very critical time for us, when we had realized a number of necessary improvements and had also spotted some additional opportunities. We’re now ready to take Locish to the next level.
The pivot came about after the initial launch saw a steady stream of locals looking to discover new things to do, in addition to traveling visitors. Since it was not just visitors to a city that were using the service, the startup decided to re-think the interface to also be useful for locals.
The announcement also points to a larger opportunity, which brings the startup out of travel and into the wider local activities space.
Towards this direction, Locish’s founders grew their team and are now working hard altogether to build on the previous version of the app in order to effectively leverage on the new opportunity raised.
Locish is now an extended community, no longer restricted to the travel audience. It is a community of users that are eager to share information and exchange experiences with those who have the same tastes as them.
Locish is about connecting like-minded people who help each other to discover new places through tailored recommendations, free from noisy, ambiguous reviews and time-consuming Internet searches. Locish enables its users to find what they are looking in real time and in a social, and interactive way.
The new Locish will roll out in New York City, San Francisco and Athens in May.
NB: Sky question mark image courtesy Shutterstock.