Paris-based adventure and extreme sports booking site Adrenaline Hunter has secured another €2 million, bring the total raised so far to more than €3 million.
The business - tnooz startup pitch here - raised €600,000 at the end of 2015 and a similar amount earlier this year.
It was co-founded by Maud Mathe, Philippe Bichet and Denis Fayolle. Fayolle was one of the founders of La Fourchette - the restaurant business acquired by TripAdvisor in 2014.
Mathe told tnooz that the funding would help Adrenaline Hunter's global aspirations in a B2B and B2C context.
It is working on a booking management tool for suppliers to manage their presence on the platform, taking Airbnb's tools for hosts as its inspiration.
"We are building this internally rather than use a third-party supplier," she explained, "and as well as a desktop version we will also be developing and launching an app at the same time. Lots of our suppliers are based outside of the office so we want them to be able to run their business with us from wherever they are."
The tool is provisionally slated to launch mid-2018.
Mathe also said that the business is planning to open an office in Asia-Pacific, with various locations under consideration. "Around 35% of customers are in France, but we have bookings from the US, Australia and South Africa so we need to be able to offer support 24/7."
The APAC office will also be used a base from which Adrenaline Hunter can source new supply in the region. "We're prioritising Thailand, Malaysia and Bali because there is a lot of adventure activities in these markets, and they are also popular destinations, so we're following the trends."
She added that all its inventory is directly contracted - again with no use of third parties. "We do this because we want to build the community - we want to be a marketplace where we help the relationship between the supplier and the client - if you add third parties in then that changes how everything works."
"Building the community" is an idea based around its desire to become more inspirational and offer guides and advice to customers who might need some hand-holding. "We're relaunching the web site early next year and we're adding new features with an emphasis on content. We've just launched a digital magazine where the team, our suppliers and customers share their expertise."
When it comes to marketing, Mathe said the main channel it uses is Google - paid and organic - and is confident that it has the expertise to tap into long-tail search terms. “We are pretty successful in targetting specific searchers, people using phrases such as ‘ice fall climbing chamonix’.
She added that social was also part of the mix, with plans to build up its presence across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. "We plan to develop direct acquisition across these channels in order to acquire customers and build the community, before starting to really build the brand. Adventure sports is not a niche, it is global from a client and supplier point of view and our aim is to become a global leader in this segment.".
The latest round had been led by BPIFrance, which has a dedicated tourism fund, and Tengelmann Ventures. Tengelmann is based in Germany and its stake in Adrenaline Hunter is its first foray into France.