Bandwango successfully closes $3.12 million private placement. The travel technology platform’s key stakeholders now include Next Frontier Capital, Kickstart Fund, Signal Peak Ventures, SaaS Ventures, Ocean Azul Partners and private investors.
Murray, UT (April 13, 2021) Bandwango, a technology company which offers a solution to more than 200 destinations worldwide tasked with organizing their things-to-do, announced today the successful and oversubscribed investment – led by investor Next Frontier Capital – to expand the company’s operations and further the Bandwango DXE platform. The company’s signature product, the Destination Experience Engine (DXE), enables Destination Marketing Organizations (DMO), Convention & Visitor Bureaus (CVB), Chambers of Commerce, associations and other clients to curate free and paid experiences into passports, trails and marketplaces designed to deliver the best tickets, tours and savings to locals and visitors alike.
Next Frontier Capital is joined in participation by Kickstart, Signal Peak Ventures, SaaS Ventures, and Ocean Azul Partners. Earlier investments in the company through inception of $700,000 were successfully deployed on the present-day Bandwango DXE, to hire its current 25 employees, and to meet the needs of its expanding client base, which now includes destinations across three different countries.
Key product features of Bandwango’s DXE include:
Infinitely organizable platform for custom curation of things-to-do
Instant mobile delivery via interactive web pages
Integrated payments for merchants and consumers to transact
First party data and local business visitation data
Marketing automation for targeted, personalized, hyper-relevant messaging
CMS agnostic integration suite enabling data driven decision making for the things-to-do industry.
This round of secured Series Seed financing will promote and support growth in an opportunity already underway. Additionally, it will allow Bandwango to scale the platform to include easier onboarding, support, and increased reporting capabilities for DMOs, CVBs, and local merchants.
“We are thankful to our employees, customers, and investors for their patronage and support.” Monir Parikh, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Bandwango, Inc. said. “We will deploy this capital to enhance our product offering, drive innovation, and support our growing roster of wonderful clients and merchant network.”
Whereas much of the travel industry was forced into hibernation during 2020, Bandwango emerged as the favored recovery solution, experiencing an amazing 100% YoY customer growth in core CVB and DMO markets. In addition to client growth, Bandwango also launched 219 unique passes and marketplaces with their partners, which resulted in 248,000 check-ins and redemptions at local restaurants, retailers, attractions, wineries, breweries, state parks, and more. Many of these initiatives have won industry awards for innovation including the Newport Beach Dine Pass and the Travel Iowa State Park Passport.
The growth of Bandwango’s market penetration resulting from their core DMO/CVB client base has enabled more than 15,000 local businesses – ranging from breweries to restaurants to museums – to offer experiences on the platform. Owning the local relationships, Bandwango’s clients provide warm introductions for onboarding these merchants. Clients then market these passes to locals and visitors through a variety of channels including third-party distribution networks with ties to Bandwango.
As travel and tourism returns post-pandemic, Bandwango is positioned and properly capitalized with a best in class solution that has been proven to deliver on local and regional tourism activities.