Booking Boss, the Australia-based provider of software solutions for the tours and activities sector, is set to expand further into Europe, as well as dig deeper into Asia, following the completion of a A$2m Series A financing round.
The financing was led by Sydney investors Michael and Daniel Dempsey, founders of Ezidebit, an e-commerce company that was acquired for A$305 million by Atlanta-based Global Payments in 2014.
Booking Boss’ husband and wife team – Andy and Renee Welsh.
“Bringing Dan and Michael onto our team is a real win; their experience in building an e-commerce business that can compete and succeed in any part of the globe will prove invaluable to us,” said CEO and founder Renee Welsh.
Seattle-based venture capital firm Acequia Capital whose investments include Pinterest and Square, and Scott Blume, former Wotif CEO, have also participated.
Welsh said the funding would help the company capitalise on the strong organic growth it was seeing in Europe. It recently expanded into Europe with ParisTrip, a leading tour operator in the French capital, due to go live with the Booking Boss solution in July 2015.
Discussing the European opportunity, Welsh said “The popularity of subscription-based, cloud-based software for delivery of solutions for business applications has not been lost on our industry.
“Low set-up costs, low monthly fees and immediate access to updates are all powerful incentives for European operators to look beyond their local market for the best solution; in turn that makes it much easier for a company like Booking Boss to appeal to geographically remote customers. We expect much of our growth in the coming year to come from Europe.”
Booking Boss considers Asia and Australia as the same home market – “we’ll certainly be pushing into key Asian markets, and have already had strong interest from China and Indonesia”, said Welsh.
She said the funding round was also necessary because “with so many new client installs planned over the coming year, we need more people, both developers and customer support and service to be able to facilitate this and ensure the quality of our solution and support is maintained and where possible improved”.
Booking Boss expanding to Europe with new funding.
Booking Boss’s SAAS-based solution combines robust booking and inventory management software with integrated point of sale and channel management functionality.
Partnerships with major online distributors including Viator, Adrenalin, Gifts That Thrill and Get Your Guide allow clients to seamlessly manage their inventory across a wide range of sales channels.
Welsh started the company in 2013 to solve a specific problem in the tours and activities space.
“For many years we ran a successful agency working with a number of tour and activity providers, we assisted them with their digital strategy and website development.
“As we got to learn more about their business we uncovered some of the core issues they were facing, largely due to the fact that everything was so manual and the majority of them were using spreadsheets and diaries. We were also fortunate, given my background in launching and running GoDo, a travel activities marketplace that we understood the challenges the marketplaces were facing in selling travel activities.
“We knew by solving the core issues at a travel activity operator level the entire industry would benefit and we could finally see some real scalability. When we discovered this and the huge opportunity this presents, we started working on Booking Boss.”
On the addressable market size in Australia, Welsh said, “Based on various data sources and our own research, we estimate there are around 25,000 operators in the Australian tour & activity market alone. This is made up of a vast range of businesses from zoo’s and attractions to local walking tours.
“We have been extremely successful in identifying the core pain points experienced across these businesses, no matter the size and as a result are one of the only booking management solutions that have the capability of managing the ticketing for major zoos’ right through to smaller niche tour providers.”
Its competitors include Rezgo and TourCMS, which Welsh said, “are two competitors we have plenty of respect for; they each have a solid user base and will no doubt continue to prosper. But there’s plenty of room for new, innovative players and we think we can give them a run for their money.”
