MUSE : BLOG

Easol raises $4.5m to pioneer a new era of experience commerce

Led by Notion Capital with participation from Y Combinator, Foundation Capital, and Slow Ventures.

We're excited to announce our seed funding round led by Europe's top SaaS investor Notion Capital with Y Combinator, Foundation Capital, Slow Ventures, and Micheal Zeisser – former Chairman of US Investments at Alibaba.

With this investment, we will accelerate our product development and are super happy to be welcoming Lee-Jon Ball as Chief Technology Officer – he was previously CTO at notonthehighstreet, Spyscape, and travel-tech company Alliants.

We're building Easol to be the platform we always wished we'd had for our own experience businesses – and so much more!

For too long, experience creators have been stitching together ineffective tools, manually tracking bookings, paying third-party booking fees, and investing heavily in custom solutions. None of these tools were designed for experiences to be sold by those who make them.

Our mission is to make Easol the first experience commerce platform that puts the technology, the ownership, and the possibilities in the hands of the experience creator.

Experience commerce will change the way experience creators can manage and grow their businesses. With Easol, they have complete control to drive more direct sales, retain more revenue, own their data, and run their businesses on their terms.

Welcome to experience commerce - read more

We believe selling experiences is the opportunity of a lifetime

This investment comes as we are seeing enormous consumer demand for experiences. Following the latest vaccine announcement, we saw our largest month to date in booking volume, up 25% from pre-pandemic growth.

Despite COVID-19 and associated travel restrictions, we are continuing to grow the number of experience creators on the platform currently at over 20% MoM.

Finding the right partner to join us on the journey

We couldn't be happier that we chose Notion as an investor and partner in Easol. We first met the team in early 2020 and it became immediately apparent to us that they were ambitious and fearless – this got us excited.

Our ambitions for Easol are as big as they come. We believe we're at the very beginning of the experience economy boom and that by creating the operating platform for every experience creator globally to run and grow their business, the growth potential for Easol is astronomical.

It became apparent to us very early on in our conversations that not only does Notion share this vision, but they share our ambition for what Easol can become, and this combination has created a special partnership.

General Partner at Notion Capital, Chris Tottman said:

"We believe the Easol team has developed an incredible solution which has become the go-to platform for the world's best experience creators who are passionate about the experience they deliver every day and not just selling things. Ben's and Lisa's deep domain expertise has already translated into rapid commercial growth with high demand that this round will support with more resources in product, marketing, sales and increasing the company's global footprint. It's rare for a company at their stage to have such strong signs of product-market fit. In fact, their SaaS metrics are some of the best we've ever seen.”

Started in the desert, now we here

We've been honoured to help so many experience businesses launch and grow. It's been one hell of a ride and we're just getting started!

2014

We co-create Rise Festival, Europe's leading snowsports and music festival with 5,000 attendees.

2016

We launch Beyond Adventures, a series of adventure travel experiences in remote locations.

2017

We launch our platform MVP, and Beyond Sahara is the first experience to be sold on Easol!

2018

We're backed by Y Combinator, the world's best early stage investor.

2019

We hit lightning-speed growth and our first 100 creators join the platform, including Rise Festival!

2020

We close our series seed and change our name to Easol!

2021

We launch our new brand and gear up for our biggest product launch yet on April 15. Sign up here!

Today, we're super proud to be powering the most exciting experience businesses on the planet including major players Ibiza Rocks, Global Cycle NetworkThe Sunday Times, and Envision Festival, all now using Easol to manage and grow their experience business.

Along with our incredible team, we are proud and excited to be on course to grow 6x this year.

Join us for our online event: How to grow your experience business!

Join us for our biggest ever online event on 15th April as we take you through 5 killer ways to grow your experience business. You’ll also be able to learn more about experience commerce and the Easol platform with product demos, live Q&A’s, and guest appearances from industry leaders in experiences and tech.

Watch the stream