i/o Ventures backed Skyara launches today as a marketplace for exciting things to do. Founded by Jonathan Wu, Dennis Liu and Steven Ou, the site provides people who can offer new experiences like a culinary tour, personalized yoga or a beer tasting with a platform to do so, hooking them up AirBnB-style with people who seek new experiences like foodies or yoga fanatics.
Key Skyara features include packaging, scheduling, booking and payments services and well as a Digg-like voting features and Skyara Requests, i.e. if a specific experience isn’t available on Skyara, consumers can request it and see if any vendor can customize their offerings.
The founders say that they’re trying to create a new experience market similar to how Etsy created a new market for DIY craft fans, targeting people who ask, “What is there to do?” during the weekends The site currently has between 50-100 experiences available in the Bay Area and plans to monetize by charging experience vendors a 12% transaction fee.
Future plans include expansion into other markets like New York and Hawaii. Says Wu, “Our goal is to get all of the screen tanned entrepreneurs and business folks out of the house and trying exciting new things. We want Skyara experiences to become a part of everyone’s weekend schedule.”
Skyara is also offering a $5 off promotional code to the first 100 TechCrunch readers to sign up with the referral code TECHCRUNCH. And for those interested, AirBnb co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk has offered lunch as a Skyara experience (starting at $10) in solidarity.
