British Columbia-based Checkfront is one of those companies to fly way under the radar. Checkfront is an online booking platform that is specifically for tours, activities and rentals. The company announced today it raised its first round of funding of $1 million.
The lead investor is co-founder of Metalogix Rasool Rayani, followed by a number of other investors that include Geordie Henderson (Hootsuite), Hannes Blum (AbeBooks/Amazon), Andrew Wilkinson (MetaLab), Bruce Livingstone (Stocksy), David Arnsdorf (Neverblue), Matt Harris & Brad Van Vugt (SendWithUs), Rajiv Khaneja (Sparklit), Todd Dunlop (RingPartner), Tobyn Sowden (Red Brick Media), Shaun Jamieson (SilkStart), Ben Fox (TapStream), Julien Sellgren (Metalogix), Ed Low (Western Foods), Steven Myhill-Jones & David Stevenson (Latitude Geographics), Randy Greencorn (Chatterblock), and Brandon Ellis (Checkfront).
Checkfront’s first public release was in June of 2009, then went live in 2010. The company was founded by Grant Jurgeneit and Jason Morehouse with a goal to help take the frustration out of online bookings. The company has grown to employ 20 out of its Vancouver and Victoria office with its software used in over 80 countries around the world. To-date, Checkfront has processed an astonishing $350 million (USD) in online bookings in the last twelve months, and seen a 100% revenue growth year-over-year.
The $1 million investment will be used to “accelerate its rapid growth,” build strategic partnerships, and grow the team. No indication on how many employees they plan to hire.
“Checkfront’s goal is to take the hassle out of managing bookings and reservations online” says Jason Morehouse, Co-founder. “Customers who come to us have usually reached the point where using outdated software or pen and paper bookings is hurting their business. Overbookings, high administration and lost sales is a big pain point for operators — that means they can’t focus on running their business. What gets us up in the morning is knowing we have a solution to help them.”
“To date we’ve been funded by our customers.” said Grant Jurgeneit, Co-founder. “It’s forced us to pay extraordinary attention to their needs while staying profitable. We have no plans on changing that, and this round of funding will be used to further our customer-centric approach to building and selling our online booking solution”.
