Culture Trip, a media startup with a heavy tech bent has raked in $20 million in Series A funding. The round is being led by PPF Group, the fund managed by entrepreneur Petr Kellner.
Previous fund-raising by Culture Trip included $2 million in seed funding from various investors, including US-based media investor Gordy Crawford. This startup is centered around producing and serving up content for the “culturally curious,” and to date has published more than 30,000 articles and videos to provide cultural, travel and food recommendations.
It has offices in London, New York and Tel Aviv, which produce content and accept further submissions from over 40 other “country hubs”, which enables Culture Trip’s content to span the globe.
Founded by psychiatrist Dr. Kris Naudts, the company plans to invest heavily in technology post its Series A. Specifically, Culture Trip says it has built a bespoke knowledge graph that uses “AI technology” in order to create a more personalised experience for users. Additionally, Culture Trip seeks to use some of the investment for editorial expansion across the globe and to establish a commercial arm that will begin to monetize the company’s plethora of content and growing fan base. In a statement, Naudts says,
Culture Trip’s knowledge graph allows the creation of a more meaningful experience for our users, deepening the personalisation of content discovery with every new read. This investment will enable us to further this technology, and also expand our presence in new hubs around the world, to continue to develop our content offering.
Dr. Kris Naudts has created an inimitable concept that elicits and fosters curiosity beyond wanderlust, garnering a smart, influential readership through a potent mix of talent and technology. This is why Culture Trip can now call itself one of the internet’s fastest-growing media start-ups, claiming to attract nearly 3 million monthly readers and 1 million followers on social media around the world. They try to publish articles about all the world’s countries, in a bid to realize their principle objective –We aim to tell the story of everywhere.
Ladislav Chvatal, Chief Officer for Strategic Projects of PPF Group says,
Culture Trip demonstrates exciting potential in both the media and tech landscapes, uniquely bridging a gap between curated content generation and proprietary technology creation. The company is taking a non-traditional approach to delivering cultural information, all while integrating some of today’s leading technologies. This new model of generating content for users refreshes today’s existing media market, making it an important venture that sees greater international growth and commercial development.
