The travel guide platform Visit Guide, affiliated to Visit Ventures startup, has successfully passed the business accelerator Venture Capital for Africa’s (VC4A) Mentor-Driven Capital programme.
The Egyptian platform accounts for 14% of searches undertaken through the Google search engine in the field of travel, hotel reservations, and trips.
Thomas van Halen, Investor Relations and Research Lead at VC4A, said that his company believes that Mentor-Driven Capital is core to unlocking Africa’s potential. This is not only in terms of the expanding pool of entrepreneurial talent coming up across Africa, but also refers to the improving number and quality of ventures over time.
Entrepreneurship is an important catalyst for social and economic advancement especially during the challenging times we are currently presented with. As brave entrepreneurs solve pressing problems, they also contribute to fuelling the economy, and can act as job creation engines.
Laura Neises, ex-Product Manager at Careem, said, “It was a pleasure to mentor with Visit Ventures during the last months.”
“It was great to see how quickly they adapted their strategy during the pandemic whilst successfully building a team and continuing to grow,” Neises added, “I am looking forward to see the future of Visit Ventures.”
The platform works as an electronic travel guide application, enabling the traveller to compare the prices of activities and hotels. It also enables them to book domestic Egyptian trips, make electronic payments (e-payments), and leave a review of the hotel or service provider.
Visit Ventures is preparing to launch the application early next year, with a team of 30 specialists in various technical fields working on the application to provide a local Egyptian experience. This focuses particularly on booking hotels online, and booking trips inside Egypt through the website and the application.
The travel guide is considered the most widespread encyclopaedia among travellers, as they can search for all sights and activities, find out their reviews and prices, and leave reviews based on personal experience.
Visit Ventures plans to provide social networking benefits for travellers, so that they can interact with the experiences they publish.
Foreign hotel booking platforms frequently force customers to pay an additional fee of up to 26% on top of the original payment, with Visa Ventures providing better prices without additional fees.
