Boataround successfully closed its Crowdberry investment campaign

Boataround.com has received funding from Crowdberry investors and Slovak Investment Holding to accelerate its international growth.

Bratislava June 18, 2018 – Investors registered on the Crowdberry platform and Slovak Investment Holding have signed an investment agreement with Boataround.com, a company which has developed and operates an online booking system for recreational yachts, motor boats, and catamarans. Offering over 10,500 vessels in 485 destinations, Boataround’s services are available worldwide. The investment will allow the company to continue its rapid growth and further expand and improve its services.

Boataround provides the yacht rental industry with digitalization, transparency and a simple user interface – elements that are already standard in other sectors such as online accommodation booking. The company’s growth skyrocketed last year with the help of its first investment round via Crowdberry, an investment platform enabling private investors to own shares in Slovak and Czech companies. Its user base, order volume, and number of destinations and vessels directly connected to the system more than tripled. In two years, Boataround’s team, which is already 25-strong, has succeeded in building a proprietary IT, technology and service infrastructure. 

“We set up Boataround because we wanted to build a brand that would be synonymous with simple, fast and affordable global yacht booking. Our goal is to make unforgettable maritime experiences accessible to everyone, and this agreement with investors is going to help us achieve it. One of the keys to our success, and which regularly gets us the highest ratings, is our unmatched customer service. We plan to use this investment to improve the quality of our services, launch a mobile app, and add new sailing destinations,” said Boataround’s CEO and co-founder Pavel Pribiš.

Boataround was founded and launched by Pavel Pribiš and Jana Escher. Both founders have more than 10 years of e-commerce and service industry experience, which they gained working in lead positions at Booking.com, the largest accommodation booking system in Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Ukraine and Asia.

“Boataround fundamentally changes the industry and has a global reach. We’ve been working closely with the team almost since their beginning, and we’re confident that the new investment will accelerate their current dynamic growth and that we will keep supporting them on this exciting journey. Our investors were attracted mainly by the quality of the team and their drive combined with their excellent results. This combination promises attractive returns in the future. Once again, we've connected the company with ‘smart’ investors, who, thanks to their experience, will help us reinforce the company’s continued growth in the global environment. We are also very pleased with Slovak Investment Holding’s decision to back the potential we both see in Boataround,” said Crowdberry’s partner for startups Michal Nešpor.

The investment by Slovak Investment Holding (SIH) comes in the form of refundable capital financing from European structural and investment funds. SIH’s participation in this investment round was prepared in collaboration with renowned external investment and consulting companies.

“We think the future of the Slovak economy lies in innovative companies providing products and services on a global level. Boataround is an excellent example of such a company,” said General Director of SIH Ivan Lesay.

Both SIH and Crowdberry are preparing other equity investment opportunities in the area of innovative small and medium-sized enterprises.