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Tastemakers Raises $1M To Sell Africa Experiences To World Travelers

Tastemakers Raises $1M To Sell Africa Experiences To World Travelers

Tastemakers
Photo via Tastemakers

New York-based startup Tastemakers has raised a $1 million seed-round — led by Precursor Ventures — for its business that connects Africa adventures to global consumers.

Tastemakers’ platform curates, prices and lists African travel and cultural experiences — from paragliding tours to wine-tasting to concerts.

The startup generates revenues by taking a 20% commission on each transaction. Community managers in Africa screen and select experiences that go up on the site.

From Tech Crunch. Story by Jake Bright.

Tastemakers will use the investment to grow the number of experiences offered from 200 to 10,000 and build out machine learning capabilities to better match suppliers, experiences and clients — CEO and founder Cherae Robinson told TechCrunch.

She likened the site to an Airbnb for commoditizing and connecting people to Africa travel experiences at scale.

On the startup’s addressable market, Robinson references a segment of culture-curious travelers: people who are traveling to experience things such as foreign art, food, music or dance workshops.

“We looked at who’s doing these kinds of tours and and the number of people booking…and we found that globally, based on triangulating that, there are about 700 million people globally booking culture-forward experiences,” said Robinson.

For different reasons — from negative stereotypes or the difficulty of identifying tourist options in Africa — most of these excursions are occurring in other parts of the world, according to Robinson.

She sees Tastemakers’ value proposition as the site that can bring a greater percentage of these culture travelers to Africa.

Read more at Tech Crunch.