Scotland: Edinburgh-based holiday rental marketing platform TravelNest has secured an initial £3 million in growth capital from the Scottish National Investment Bank.
Along with fresh funding from existing investors, the startup will utilise the investment to target new markets, increase its service offering and scale up its team to capitalise on the post-pandemic tourism recovery.
TravelNest aims to improve occupancy rates for holiday rental properties by automating marketing and increasing exposure on booking sites such as Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia, Tripadvisor and Vrbo, while reducing administration time for property owners.
The company secured £1.8 million in funding from Silicon Valley Bank [SVB] and Scottish Enterprise at the end of 2020, following a £3 million seed round in 2017 and a £5.1 million Series A funding round in 2019. TravelNest launched its software product in 2018.
Mark Munro, executive director for sustainable investment at the bank, told insider.co.uk: “TravelNest is an exciting company in the travel technology sector with significant potential to scale up globally.
“The investment substantiates Edinburgh and Scotland as one of the UK’s fastest growing tech hubs and an incubator for technology businesses, aligning with the bank’s innovation mission and supports key elements of the Scottish Technology and Ecosystem Review as well as the National Strategy for Economic Transformation initiatives by supporting an entrepreneurial-oriented technology business and the creation of skilled roles,” he added.
TravelNest has previously received funding via the Early Stage Growth Challenge Fund as part of an early-stage support package announced by the Scottish government in the summer of 2020. The fund, managed by Scottish Enterprise [SE], was set up to help Scotland’s most promising emerging businesses continue to innovate during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
