GetYourGuide CEO & Founder, Johannes Reck: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank

GetYourGuide CEO Johannes Reck on surviving COVID with $0 revenue, regretting a $14M Series A, and why Europe needs tax-free visas to compete with the US.

• GetYourGuide raised $450M from SoftBank Vision Fund in 2019, then revenue went to $0 in 3 weeks when COVID hit.
• Reck regrets the $14M Series A at ~$30-35M pre-money as over-dilutive; advises founders to raise less at early stages.
• After the Series A, listening too much to VCs caused over-hiring and strategy sprawl, forcing a 30% layoff within a year.
• Booking.com founder Kees Koolen cold-called Reck during the layoffs, joined the board, and personally invested $1M — Reck credits him as most impactful mentor.
• 90% of GetYourGuide’s Berlin employees are not German; Germany spends €100B subsidizing pensions vs €7B on VC annually.
• Reck angel-invested early in TravelPerk (seed) and Trade Republic, with checks ranging €150K–€500K across ~30-40 companies.
• European VC totals ~$50B/year vs US north of $200B; Reck argues the real gap is growth-stage and pre-IPO capital, not seed.
• GetYourGuide’s CTO hire from Netflix took 6 months to get a German visa despite a signed contract, requiring Reck to call the foreign office directly.

2025-06-23 · Watch on YouTube