Strong growth and a second financing round for Boataffair

Founded in 2017 by Adrian and Natalya Walker (picture), Boataffair serves two types of clients: on the one hand, are private boat owners and professional yacht owners or managers that are ready to rent out their boats or yachts boats, and on the other hand, are individuals that are looking for new experiences on water. Boataffair’s sharing community not only brings the two parties together, but it also facilitates direct communication allowing boat owners to earn extra income, and meet new people through the experiences they provide.

The platform also offers a dedicated experience page featuring «true and authentic experiences» created by boat owners for clients. Adrian Walker, Co-Founder and CEO of Boataffair reports that the experiences-page is continuously growing with more categories in many countries. “This is a major differentiator to our competition, who do not have a dedicated experience page. Many boat owners & clients ended up listing with us or booking with us because they found what they were looking for on our experience page”, he said.

Closing of a seed round
By the end of September this year, Boataffair’s solution is available in over 40 countries with quality inventory in Brasil, Canada and in London. The company has a team of eight employees. Recently, the startup closed a seed funding round of CHF300k with private investors. "Our investors have startup and exit expreinece and will support us strategically", explains Adrian Walker to Startupticker.

The funds will be used to support further international expansion and to grow its community. The funds will also enable the startup to create new strategic partnerships in addition to the existing ones. Current partners include Private Member Clubs, agents, event and PR firms who all contribute to the growth of Boataffair’s community.

Walker remarks: “2018 has been very successful for us. We have attracted clients on our quality yachts including NHL Hockey Players (Victor Hedman), tech billionaires, corporates and tech entrepreneurs. They all valued the quality of our inventory, and they cherished the uncomplicated and flexible manner of booking a yacht with us. This is reflected on our trustpilot site, where we gathered many 5 star reviews.”

New boat swapping opportunities for boat owners
This year, Boataffair launched a boat-swapping scheme that allows boat owners to experience boats in different locations around the world without rental costs, get more out of their boat at home, and meet new people. Boat swapping transactions are currently available in Australia, the UK, Canada, Barcelona and the Netherlands.

According to Walker, “This boat swapping scheme has not been done by any of our competitors and is a major differentiator. It allows private boat owners to enter the sharing economy more easily and this has been confirmed by our current clients and via surveys done by us.”

(RAN / SK)