JetCamp gets early stage investment from Falkensteiner Ventures
Delft (NL), 19 November 2020
JetCamp, an innovative website for searching and booking campsites, receives an early-stage funding from the Austrian/Swiss investment fund Falkensteiner Ventures. With the investment, the start-up from Delft wants to accelerate its growth within the European camping market of €5 billion.
The 6-language www.jetcamp.com website has a focus on content & inspiration and already lists more than 90% of all 25,000 European campsites. This includes larger holiday parks and family campsites but also smaller glampings, mini-campsites and nature- and farm-campsites. JetCamp, which can best be compared to a hotel booking site in terms of layout, will use the investment to target Germany and France, Europe’s main camping markets.
Capital and network
The investment consists of capital and access to the network and knowledge of Falkensteiner Ventures. Founder and CEO Erwin Hoevenaar: "For us, Falkensteiner is much more than an investor, Beat Blaser and Erich Falkensteiner have a wealth of experience and an enormous network. Mentor and challenger at the same time, we can certainly use that".
Growth camping holidays
The European camping market has grown 10% between 2018-2020, while motorhome-holidays show an even larger increase of 20% during that period. Hoevenaar: "We see that more and more people are spending their holidays in or close to nature. Covid-19 has accelerated this trend, as a result of which we have seen an enormous growth in camping holidays, especially during the high-season of 2020, and the emergence of a fairly new phenomenon such as pop-up campsites".
Traditional market
Erwin Hoevenaar: "the current players in this market often originate from traditional companies such as automobile clubs or publishers, where the business model depends on (print) advertisements. Campsites pay an annual fee to be listed. JetCamp uses a free (freemium) model. Listings are free of charge, which makes us unique in the market. When a campsite decides to accept bookings JetCamp receives a commission. No cure no pay! ”.
About JetCamp
JetCamp was founded by Erwin Hoevenaar and Roderik Verburg (both ex Thomas Cook) and consists of 8 employees spread over branches in Delft and Lithuania (software development). In the meantime 2,500 campsites can be booked online and the goal is to double this to 5,000 within 6 months.
Beat Blaser about JetCamp: "camping is a growth market and a product with which we as investors have experience and which we strategically focus on. The JetCamp team led by Erwin and Roderik has the right DNA and has created a low-cost and scalable platform with the right basis for exponential growth in a very short period of time".
About Falkensteiner Ventures
Falkensteiner Ventures AG is a boutique venture capital accelerator with offices in Zürich, Vienna and Munich. The company invests in promising tech-driven start-ups in travel, hospitality and leisure. The investment fund was set up exactly 2 years ago by hotelier Erich Falkensteiner and travel entrepreneur Beat Blaser.
For the editors:
JetCamp B.V. | Erwin Hoevenaar | +31 6 47301191 | erwin@jetcamp.com
Falkensteiner Ventures AG | Beat Blaser | +43 136 162 6310 | beat@falkensteiner-ventures.com