Outdoorsy is partnering with Google Cloud to help it gain more customers and expand globally.
The recreational vehicle and outdoor travel platform is building on its experience of the early pandemic when cancellations soared only to then hit record bookings just months later.
Ryan Quinn, co-founder of U.S.-based Outdoorsy, says the company decided to move to the cloud quicker than previously anticipated to help it scale-up rapidly.
“When the pandemic started, cancellation rates skyrocketed and web traffic plummeted during our high season. It quickly went from a situation of being prepared for our biggest high season ever to receiving no traffic on site.
“Then the Government recommends folk to get outside and RV become the only way to rent a vehicle and go visit your family. We went into 4500% growth from that point. Those numbers are really awesome from the marketing side but from the engineering side those are terrifying numbers.”
Outdoorsy is leveraging a number of Google Cloud capabilities including Google Kubernetes Engine which is used to host its technology on its platform.
Quinn says the company is also using artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to ensure first time renters find the best destination options as well as set pricing.
“Around 90% of our traffic in the past year has been new, first-time renters who don’t have any experience and don’t know where to go.”
Janet Kennedy, vice president for North America at Google Cloud, says: “This is a perfect example of how Google Cloud can help organizations. We have all experienced a special moment and people have entirely changed their travel plans.”
She adds that the technology enables companies to scale-up and scale-down quickly.
While it is often larger companies with huge volumes of transactions such as Amadeus, Expedia and Sabre that talk about cloud migration, Kennedy says the engineering and technical capabilities of cloud are also needed by startups.
Outdoorsy announced $120 million in equity and debt financing in late June for expansion as well as its Roamly insurance product for travelers and RV owners.