MUMBAI: Treebo today announced its acquisition of Events High, a marketplace for experiential events and activities for an undisclosed amount. Events High’s acquisition is strategically aligned with Treebo’s mission to become India’s most loved travel network by delivering delightful experiences to every traveller. Events High offers customers information on, and ability to book activities like treks and hikes, cooking classes, dance classes, concerts, heritage walks, nightlife, etc. in 8 cities - Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Kolkata and Goa. The move will effectively enable Treebo to enter the thriving events and activities segment which is estimated to be ~$180B in size globally, and ~$5B in India. Post the acquisition, Treebo has absorbed the entire Events High team.
Commenting on the acquisition, Treebo, co-founder, Sidharth Gupta said, “We are on a mission to offer delightful experiences to travelers and build the most loved travel network. Over the last 3 years, we have made the first big leap in fulfilling this mission by offering great quality hotels at affordable prices. We are now making another move in the same direction by offering curated local events and activities to our customers through Events High. Experiencing these local activities is a core part of people’s travel plans. More so now than ever before, people are keen to buy ‘experiences’ not ‘things’. Moreover, with nearly hundred percent offline bookings, fragmented and unorganised supply, and yet a large demand among travelers, this industry has similar characteristics to what the hotel industry had 10 years ago. We saw a great opportunity to use technology to capture the untapped potential of this space through Events High.”
He further added, “We are excited to have Nikesh, Arvind and the team onboard. They come with strong tech experience having worked with the technology giant like Google and Walmart Labs in the US. Their solid domain expertise and consumer understanding reflects in the strong product they have built.”
Events High, backed by Axilor Ventures, was started by Nikesh Garera and Arvind Batra in 2016. Nikesh & Arvind have a strong background in machine learning and big data. They both were a part of the Kosmix team in Bay Area, that was later acquired and became Walmart Labs. The duo moved to Bengaluru couple of years back with Walmart Labs and started Events High.
Events High, co-founder and CEO, Nikesh Garera said “Customers value engagement & unique experiences, and Events High has always been committed to curate these experiences and make them discoverable. We have seen an explosion in demand and supply of experiences, with Events High achieving more than 1.5 million organic unique users per month and 10x growth in bookings in the last year alone. Stay is an integral part of the huge number of travellers who attend such experiences, and with Treebo we share the vision to offer delightful experiences to such travelers. In the end, both the activity and the stay play a major role in the entire lifecycle for the traveller, and with Treebo we are excited to have a complimentary partner and are uniquely poised to comprehensively address this gap in the market.”
Globally, interest in the activities and experiences space has piqued recently with several players taking bets by either building this offering organically or investing in existing companies. Airbnb launched Experiences last year, Marriott invested in activities metasearch platform PlacePass, and Booking Holdings acquired activities distribution software provider, FareHarbour. Viator (owned by TripAdvisor), GetYourGuide, and Klook are the other companies active in this space globally. This market, however, has been mostly unpenetrated in India. With the acquisition of Events High, Treebo will now be one of the major early movers in this space.
