Liftopia, the ski industry technologists, has closed a $5 million round of funding.
This round was headed up by Industry Ventures with participation from new investors ru-Net, Thayer Ventures, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, and Walter Winshall.
The company will use this capital infusion to continue building out their proprietary business intelligence and revenue management systems for ski resorts, including scaling staff to focus on their mobile and e-commerce products. This includes their iPhone app, which Tnooz has written about here.
Liftopia's technology is used by over 250 resorts across North America, and claims to have tripled revenue in the 2012-2013 season for their customers.
Liftopia also offers a direct-to-consumer platform of deals from participating resorts, as it focuses on a multi-prong approach to increasing revenue for customers.
In the funding announcement, co-founder and CEO Evan Reece said:
"Liftopia is working hard to solve problems for the ski industry operators and help them leverage technology and data to make skiing and snowboarding more accessible for consumers. We’ve been fortunate to have a phenomenal group of investors supporting us over the years, and we’re excited to add this esteemed new group to the team – all of whom recognize the innovative technology Liftopia has developed for the ski industry and the opportunity ahead.”
Industry Ventures managing director Roland Reynolds said of their investment:
“It’s rare to find a company that’s making such a positive impact and changing distribution fundamentals on a sector like Liftopia has done for ski. Industry Ventures is excited to invest and help the team accelerate development and marketing. We are incredibly impressed with the Liftopia team and believe they are the market leader in an increasingly important sector.”
This brings the total amount raised to $7.9 million, following early investor and a $1.3 million round led by First Round Capital nearly two years ago (that story lives here).
NB: Slopes image courtesy Shutterstock.