German online travel startup GetYourGuide has raised $194 million from investors, hoping to capitalize on a bump in demand for travel services in the summer, further an expansion into the U.S., and invest in large language models and other artificial intelligence tools.

The Berlin-based company said Thursday it had raised the funding through a mix of equity and debt, with $85 million of equity investment being led by U.S. asset management firm Blue Pool Capital.

The investment values the company at nearly $2 billion, up from GetYourGuide’s last publicly-disclosed valuation of $1.4 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. Existing investors KKR and Temasek invested again in this round.

The debt portion of the deal was led by UniCredit and also backed by BNP Paribas, Citibank and KfW. Total investment in GetYourGuide, including both equity and debt, now stands at just over $1 billion.

GetYourGuide’s product differs from those offered by some other major players in the online travel space. Rather than advertise hotels, flights and other forms of transportation, GetYourGuide sells its users experiences and things to do in unexplored places.

These experiences are offered through third-party suppliers on its platform, with GetYourGuide taking a commission on each booking.

The company has seen a massive jump in demand for its platform with travel returning back to normal following the ending of Covid-19 restrictions and the resumption of normal cross-border transportation.

Johannes Reck, the CEO and co-founder of GetYourGuide, said the company had seen its revenues erased during the early days of the pandemic — for multiple consecutive quarters the company made no revenue whatsoever, he said.

“We were severely depressed in the pandemic,” Reck told CNBC. “The travel industry was very hard hit within the travel industry. GetYourGuide was probably one of the worst affected. Experiences were shut down. People didn’t go out.”

“There were some greenshoots in 2021 with the reopening of the U.S. but the real rebound only started when omicron turned out to be a more benign variant and people started to resume traveling in Easter of 2022 and then we had an exploding business on our hands,” he said.

Reck said the company plans to use the new funding to expand its presence in the U.S., where it sees a huge opportunity for growth, as well as to invest in artificial intelligence tools that can improve its product and user experience.

He said the company is working on developing large language models, which are a type of AI system that can generate natural language text, to create personalized recommendations and content for its users.

“We believe that the future of travel is not just about booking a flight or a hotel, but about having a meaningful experience in a destination,” Reck said. “And we believe that AI can help us create those experiences for our customers.”

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