HalalBooking, a search and booking website for halal-friendly travel, allowing users to book hotels and villas online, has big plans as a result of a new funding round.
The $5 million funding round is being positioned as a pre-Series B investment, with a further $15 million to follow during the second quarter of 2021.
Participating in the new round are a group of unnamed angel investors and the British Business Bank.
The company claims the activity will value the business at $75 million.
It also says the latest round will put the company on a path to a public listing by 2024, if it achieves its growth plans for the prior two years.
The last investment round for HalalBooking was in September 2019 when it secured a $2.1 million round led Azar Gurbanov, co-founder of wellness specialist FSAstore.
Pre-pandemic, HalalBooking says it was achieving a 70% compound annual growth rate and early-2020 had seen strong levels of bookings.
It says by the third quarter the business was on a par with the corresponding three-month period in 2019.
CEO Elnur Seyidli says: "The travel industry in general may take three to four 4 years to recover to 2019 levels, but we are in the best sector of the travel industry - we are in leisure rather than business; and in accommodation rather than flights.
"The leisure accommodation sector should see a strong recovery this year in Q3 and Q4. So for a brand like ours, which had 100% growth trajectory pre-COVID, it should not be surprising if we are able to resume our exponential growth this year."
* Check out this presentation from Seyidli at The Phocuswright Conference 2020 pitch competition for established companies.
HalaBooking - Innovation: Launch - The Phocuswright Conference Online 2020 - Elnur Seyidli