Adrenaline Hunter is an online platform for extreme sports and outdoor activities.
The France-based startup believes it is the first online booking service for the sector and that it is tapping into a $31bn market.
The company received Euro 600,000 in funding late last year and has been building out the team further since then. The roadmap for 2017 includes implementing a back-office system to manage inventory and suppliers.
Q&A with co-founder and product manager Maud Mathe:
What problem does your business solve?
Our thirst for adrenaline too often came to a standstill while trying to book adrenaline trips around the world. We searched high and low online, sent a plethora of emails – all to no avail. Thus came to life the idea of Adrenaline Hunter.
Before you would spend hours searching and comparing several adventure websites and never get answers from the providers.
Now with Adrenaline Hunter, people seeking extreme sports activities and unique adventure experiences will just have to visit one unique website to find, compare and book several extreme sports activities and adventure travel worldwide.
Names of founders & their management roles?
We are a team of three co-founders: Maud Mathe (co-founder, CPO, sales and communications director), Philippe Bichet (co-founder, CFO, COO and web marketing director) and Denis Fayolle (advisor and web marketing specialist).
Number of full-time paid staff?
12 people (four people in web content department, six in partnership department and two people in IT and tech department).
Funding arrangements?
We raised a seed round of Euro 600,000 at the end of 2015 from some renowned investors, including Denis Fayolle (business advisor and co-founder of Lafourchette.com), Charles Dunston (founder at Chronoresto.fr, internet based food-delivery service), Philippe Yonnet (SEO expert and CEO at Search Foresight agency), Armand De Milleville (former general manager at American Express and expert in payment systems and partner networks), and Pascal Quiry and Yann LeFur (finance lecturers at HEC business school and co-authors of the Vernimmen book, a reference for corporate finance in France and Europe).
Revenue Model?
We work on an on-performance marketing model. Like most of marketplaces, we make money from a transparent service fee on each booking that we bring to our partners.
Why do you think the pain point your solving is painful enough that customers are willing to pay for your solution?
- Our solution is free to use for customers (B2C).
- We only take commissions from our partners (B2B). Our partners are willing to pay for the booking fee as they see it as on-performance marketing. They pay us a booking fee only if they have a booking. Listing their activities on our platform is totally free and we only take a commission on successful bookings. We bring them visibility, customer service and more bookings.
- Also, it’s a win-win solution. We are paid only if they are!
External validation?- A former entrepreneur and advisor in France is accompanying us: Denis Fayolle, one of the co-founders of LaFourchette.com in France. He co-founded million dollars startups as LaFourchette (acquired by Tripadvisor), Habiteo, Zensoon (sold to Wahanda) and ManoMano.
- We raised 600 000 euros in one month.
- We’ve not yet opened our website to Google, but we already have one booking a day and we’ve seen fantastic results from our first ad campaigns (great traffic and conversion rates).
- We already have 1100 offers, 420 partners, in 21 countries and 136 spots over the globe. And it’s only the beginning!
- We created a team of elite sportsmen specialized in extreme & outdoor sports. The Gurus’ Team is made of the most renowned extreme sports icons. We already have eight gurus on board and it’s just the beginning.
Our gurus: Mitu Monteiro in Pro kitesurfer (pro kitesurfer - wave riding world record), Paul Henri De Le Rue in (pro snowboarder), Mallory de Villemarqué (pro kitesurfer - freestyle), Stephane Mifsud (pro freediver - Apnea), Christophe Bichet (pro climber and mental coach)
Skills, connections of your founders?
Maud Mathe, former CMO at Munich-based Excursiopedia, has international experience (Italy, South Africa and Germany). She is in charge of the website, marketing and sourcing activities.
Philippe Bichet brings a financial and analytical outlook, as he worked in investment banking and M&A in Paris and Singapore.
Serial entrepreneur, Fayolle is accumulating success after success with his new model of start-ups, and is currently working with Habiteo (raised Euro 3 million in 2015) and ManoMano (raised Euro 16 million this year). He is actively accompanying both Maud and Philippe in their respective fields.
Tnooz view:
Lots of companies are skirting round adventure travel. There's Yonder, which got $2m in funding for its adventure app a year ago, Faralong which brings a group booking twist to the sector and Advlo to connect adventure seekers with local guides.
On the one hand it feels like it's a good time to be in tours and activities with investment dollars around as well as plenty of buzz in terms of bringing the sector online and interest from big names - think Google, Expedia, Ctrip, Kayak and TripAdvisor.
However, the same problems that hamper the T&A sector will also hold up the more niche players. The big challenges of fragmentation, lack of technical sophistication and the economics of making it work for distributors are all still present. That said, as pointed out in last year's Phocuswright report on the sector there is hope with cheaper technology, mobile and the presence of those same big names all helping.
Adrenaline Hunter has lots going for it. A solid team of both entrepreneurs, advisors and people with travel experience. Going forward it will face the same challenges of all startups in terms of awareness and building scale. It also needs to ensure it can build up enough inventory to keep people coming back. The eternal problem with travel, and perhaps even more with adventure travel, being that it's a once a year kind of thing.
Related:
Adrenaline Hunter raises Euro 600,000 to build out the team