Along with being a booming market for business, Withlocals Co-founder says he loves the ‘fight’ of Asian entrepreneurs and the region’s culture
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Image credit: Withlocals
Withlocals is a Netherlands-based online marketplace that connects travellers with locals through food and experiences. It wants to do for these areas what Airbnb has done for accommodation, but the focus is currently on Southeast Asia — soon to include Europe and eventually China.
The startup secured a US$500,000 seed round in September 2013 from Greenhouse Group, a company in the Netherlands that invests in startups in the digital marketing field and helps them accelerate.
“Withlocals is a marketplace where local people can offer things they’re good at or passionate about. We’ve got three main verticals. The first is Eat With Locals, which is having a dinner at a local family’s home. The second one is Tours With Locals. After all, who knows more about his or her community than a local? So instead of booking with a travel agency in London, you book a tour guide [direct with the local]… Typically they get 20-30 per cent of the cut, but now with us they get 80 per cent,” Marijn Maas, Co-founder, Withlocals told e27.
The final category is Activities With Locals. An example may be something as simple as girls who are good at fruit carving in Bali — and may already be offering workshops — now have the opportunity to connect directly with tourists through the platform.
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Maas is also a Co-founder of Greenhouse Group, with Withlocals being his eighth startup to date. He shared the original seed round has since been extended to about US$900,000.
Withlocals sees itself as being a disruptive force in introducing the possibility of home dining on a large scale, which could ultimately compete with restaurants in a niche way. It enables a much more personal experience for travellers, and at the same time, offers locals with a passion for cooking a way to share their food and support themselves.
A brand new offering the startup has just released is Ask Locals, which allows people in their home countries to get advice from verified locals in destination countries before leaving on their travels.
Keeping it unique
“We have 92 Withlocal ambassadors throughout Asia who verify every single local on our platform; so we try to keep [agencies] away,” Maas said, adding that each local is only allowed to offer 40 ‘experiences’ per year to protect against agency-style outfits taking over the platform and turning it into a money spinner.
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Locals can be rejected if they appear to be representing companies or agencies, or if their offering is not authentic. With food, having high hygiene standards and good quality dishes is a basic requirement to be accepted onto the platform.
“It’s the first time I ever launched a company where venture capitalists are actually calling us and not the other way around. We didn’t need the money yet… We’re doing good money-wise, but with so much interests from VCs — especially from the US — we’ve decided to start with our Series A round early. We’re going to start with it in the beginning of 2015 and finish in nine months or so,” he said, but declined to disclose the amount they are looking for.
Thailand: The biggest market
What Withlocals has seen is that many of their customers are actually Asians travelling in Asia, rather than just Americans or Europeans coming over for vacations, as some might assume. That’s good news in terms of gaining traction with the local market in Asia on the consumer side, as well as those offering the services.
The startup’s biggest market in Southeast Asia is currently Thailand due to its popular food, open mentality and the sheer size of its tourism industry. While somewhere like the Philippines was relatively easy to enter, Maas says a market like Cambodia has been more of a challenge. Something a simple as a difference in cultural mindset about inviting strangers into your home can make adoption for such a service as Withlocals much trickier.
“For me, my dream would be opening up China. The potential is there, it’s a difficult country, everything is different, but the numbers are so fantastic. I love their culture,” Maas said. China is on the startup’s roadmap for Q1 2016, with Europe taking precedent in 2015.
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“If you look at Asia, it’s the second largest and fastest growing tourist area in the world. Everything is going up, so it’s a different ball game from Europe. I also love how open people are, how entrepreneurial they are, how they want to work together with us and make money… I love their fight,” he added.
Ultimately, Withlocals is looking to be a global solution to an age-old problem — meeting locals in a country you have never been to before, but without wanting to feel like you are imposing on their personal lives. After all, how often do you get an invite to have dinner with a local family? It’s not always easy, even if you do get on friendly terms.
Creating experiences
“We have a vision. We truly think that in the future, with the new generation coming up, the booking flow in travel will be totally upside down. Experiences will be so important. For example, you want to have a great diving experience… everything else is just logistics [to help you achieve that],” Maas said.
As technology makes the world a smaller place, airlines and hotels will more and more be stepping stones to end-point experiences that people really care about. Withlocals is waiting to put you in touch with locals that can deliver to you those authentic experiences and make your vacation that bit more… well, localised.
The post Withlocals wants to be the Airbnb of food and local experiences in Asia appeared first on e27.