Pair of aces: Klook double down on USD$60 million investment

With news of Klook’s successful round of series C funding, coming at the end of last year, where the in-destination platform secured US$60 million (the largest deal of its kind) to expand their global presence, founder Ethan Lin asserted the company’s intention to develop new products to achieve this aim.

“In addition to global expansion, we plan to use the funding to accelerate the development of travel technology, which is really the core of the company.”

Now, in-keeping with their founder’s statement, Klook have announced the appointments of Anita Ngai, as chief revenue officer, and David Liu as chief product officer. Two astute hires who will no-doubt make an impact on the company’s direction, as members of an already formidable leadership team, which includes president and chief operation officer Eric Gnock Fah, and chief technology officer, Bernie Xiong.

It’s good to see such fast, positive moves after significant investment, and sentiment which I am sure will be shared by investors, who will have great confidence in both employees track record.

Following stints as head of marketing for APAC for Hotels.com, and head of corporate strategy & digital business Development at  Link Asset Management, Anita has gained valuable experience of growing businesses through marketing, localization and globalization, user experience optimization, and bridging demand and supply.

A great match for Klook, who will use Miss Ngai’s talents to enhance the brand at a local and global level, by scaling up marketing channels, furthering partnerships, and deepening overall presence with trade, tech collaborators, and consumers in APAC, as well as in the Americas and Europe.

“It is an exciting time to be in the tours, activities, and in-destination service space. Its complex and fragmented supply creates a large opportunity for online platforms to differentiate themselves by serving the rising demand in a more comprehensive and personalized way than ever before,” said Anita Ngai, “I am excited to join Klook and leverage my experiences in online travel across different continents to rapidly expand our reach to travellers around the world.”

As CPO, David Liu  will continue to drive Klook’s product innovation and user experience. He joined Klook in 2016 as Vice President of Product and UX, and under his leadership, the team has scored key achievements including the inaugural launch of Klook’s Android Instant App and our best-in-class merchant solutions, as well as localizing our platforms into a total of eight languages.

David and his team have earned major accolades for Klook, including the Klook mobile app being featured over 100 times as the go-to app for trip planning and awarded “Best of the Year” by both Apple App Store and Google Play. David was instrumental in building up multiple e-commerce, messaging and social network products for Tencent and Yahoo, and thus brings to Klook valuable experience in technology development and product management from both Greater China and the U.S.

Commenting on the role David said, “Klook’s technology innovation is what users love about us and what we take pride in,. With my previous experience of scaling innovation for the best-known technology companies in Asia, I look forward to bringing the most creative tech solutions to the Klook platform for minimizing friction and solving traveller pain points.”