Heygo, livestreaming travel platform, announces $20 million in Series A funding at a $120 million valuation 

London, U.K. (February 15, 2022) – Livestreaming platform Heygo today announces its $20 million Series A funding round, led by Northzone with the participation of Lightspeed Venture Partners, Point 9 Capital, TQ Ventures, Ascension, the Fund, and a series of high profile angels, including Guillaume Pousaz, founder of Checkout, Lawrence Leuschner, founder of Tier, Bastian Lehmann, founder of Postmates, Scott Chacon founder of Github (through SCNE Ventures), Ian Hogarth founder of Songkick, Matt Robinson founder of GoCardless and Nested, Richard Mabey founder of Juro, and others. Michiel Kotting, Paul Murphy, and Kolja Hebenstreit joined Heygo’s board as a result. 

Built to let anyone travel from home without physical, financial, or environmental barriers, Heygo is spearheading a new real-world livestreaming category centered on travel and culture – from tours through cities, natural wonders, and museums to classes, performances, and adventures. Heygo’s live tours are streamed by guides in more than 90 countries and counting. They deliver all the connection, insight, and joy that comes with physical travel, and are free to join to ensure that anyone who wants to explore the world is now able to. 

Guides—Heygo’s creators—are empowered to share the places and subjects they love on their own live channels with a passionate global audience while earning money from a supportive tipping culture that champions real connection over view counts and ads. Heygo has welcomed users from 179 countries, delivering over 300% growth in bookings this January over last year, and recently hit the 2 million bookings mark. 

“Heygo is one of those exceptional cases where a company has created a service that you feel should have always existed,” adds Michiel Kotting, Partner at Northzone and Board Member. “Their interactive, guided streams are the Twitch equivalent of the hugely popular travel show and documentary genre, creating a new category of immersive world travel from home. John, Liam and their team have provided creators around the world with a powerful medium for self-expression and monetization, while giving audiences hours of transformative entertainment, unlocking experiences that were entirely impossible before.” 

“We want to create a space that enables people to share their stories and passions with an international community in a very intimate, personal, and raw way,” said co-founder and CEO John Tertan. “It’s been incredible to see thousands of people make Heygo a part of their daily life and see tour guides, cooks, performers, historians, gardeners, hikers and other creators flourish with entirely new audiences.” 

Heygo is investing in its platform and community by developing new features to make sharing and connecting more seamless than ever for both creators and Heygoers. Their new streaming app combines best-in-class streaming features and is scheduled to launch in a few weeks. The funds will be used to develop new in-stream tooling for creators and community spaces to help bring the world closer together. 

“We are excited to support Heygo as it scales up and accelerates its next phase of growth in this incredible new category of content,” said Paul Murphy, Partner at Lightspeed and Board Member. “Ina time when so many platforms are coming up short on promises of positive, healthy human connections online, Heygo’s approach to content and connection is a breath of fresh air that leaves them well-positioned to be the generational leader in livestreaming travel and culture.” 

About Heygo 

Heygo is an interactive livestreaming travel platform that makes world travel available anytime, to anyone. With immersive tours in 90 countries and counting, Heygo empowers creators to share the places and subjects they know best with people around the world. Viewers can join the tours for free, ask questions or interact with other travelers and take postcards to remember their journey, all 100% live.