Imagine that. Miles away there is a small space nestled in the forest on a lake with new farm eggs in the kitchen waiting for your arrival. There are flames to pet, berries to collect and fireflies dancing at dusk. At bedtime, you can look at the stars in the infinite dark sky. The environment is bloody and for $50 a night, it can help farmers, ranchers and winemakers find a sustainable way to conserve their land and the environment.
Such a position exists and his discovery became conceivable through a handful of celebrities, top-level venture capitalists, a Shark Tank winner, a pioneer of the web and a social impact on the filmmaker-turned-self-taught PC programmer who, in 2013, dreamed of creating a full database of camps that can be exploited through device learning algorithms to allow campers to locate the best place for Surf.
Today, Hipcamp, the Airbnb glamping, has 420,000 mini-homes, mobile homes, yurts and campsites, and has been globalized with the acquisition of Youcamp Australia and its expansion in Canada. A milestone for the launch of the B-series with the support of Will Smith’s Dreamers Fund, Marcy Ventures Partners of Jay-Z, Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media, Shark Tank winner Katherine Krug, co-founder of Flickr Caterina Fake, co-founder of Hotel Tonight Sam Shank, Tripit co-founder Gregg Brockway, Andrew Chen of Andreessen Horowitz, Sarah Tas. , Tripp Jones of August Capital and Dave Morin of Slow Ventures.
Competitors come with Tentrr, GlampingHub and Glamping.com, subsidized through Benedict Cumberbatch, but all appear to be smaller-scale and most likely targets for the acquisition of Hipcamp with their valuation of $127 million and $41.8 million in funding.
The notable maxim is hipcamp founder and CEO Alyssa Ravasio, who controlled to raise the budget in Silicon Valley in the #MeToo era. This is a significant achievement because women still get only 2.8% of U.S. venture capital, according to PitchBook.
I had the opportunity to communicate with Ravasio about her founder’s adventure and how she knew how to negotiate this was of wonderful uncertainty for agencies in the Covid-19 world.
Who wrote your first check?
The first check made through a friend, Katherine Krug. [A serial entrepreneur known for refusing a deal with Shark Tank and raising $3 million on her own through crowdfunding].
We were drinking wine in his space and told him how he was looking to build this platform, but I had no idea how he was going to pay the rent. She and her husband, Jonathan Swanson, founder of Thumbtack, were avid travelers who ran their businesses as virtual nomads and enjoyed the concept of Hipcamp.
She said, I need to invest in you, maybe everything and she wrote me a check for $1,000.
How did you get your seed?
Our first institutional investor arrived six months later. It was Dave Morin from Slow Ventures. He’d heard of us on Twitter. I had the page online and someone had sent a price ticket asking for a clearing for authorized dogs. I responded by saying it was a wonderful concept and he tweeted it to please a million followers. He totally blew up the company. Dave saw the tweet and approached.
At that time, Hipcamp aimed to group all national and state parks on a singles map. When I told Dave he wanted to go up personal camps, it looked like it was going to be huge. How much cash do you want? I like whoa and he wrote a check for $250,000. That’s what introduced our first round.
Everyone wanted to invest because Dave had the biggest union in AngelList. He asked me, if you could have an investor in the world right now, who would you want? I said Tim O’Reilly because he believes in the government and can help me paint with major public park agencies. His wife was also deputy technical director of the White House. [Ravasio in the past painted for the U.S. State Department’s Network Freedom Working Group]
Tim invested his fund, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, and our circular table closed at $2 million. BRYCE Roberts, a spouse at OATV, has been a member of the Board of Directors and has incredibly helped us build this business for over six years. He’s now a board observer.
Who ran your A and B?
Benchmark’s Sarah Tavel led Series A and Andreessen Horowitz’s Andrew Chen led the B-series. Or they took seats on the board and were very involved.
A year ago, he got investors, Jay-Z and Will Smith. How did this happen?
Our B Series was directed through Andreessen’s A16z Cultural Leadership Fund, which is edited through Jay-Z’s Marcy Ventures Partners and Will Smith’s Dreamers Fund [in addition to Quincy Jones, Kevin Durant, Diddy, Shonda Rhimes and other black cultural icons]. The fund’s project is to create greater opportunities for African-Americans in the box of generation and all the proceeds of the fund go to charities that provide diversity and inclusion.
In a fried fish organized by Ben Horowitz of Andreessen, I was taken to Chris Lyons, who runs the fund. As we talked about how Hipcamp has been very intentional in creating outdoor access for all, I shared how much Jay-Z had influenced my thinking about entrepreneurship and my cultural programming. He filed for the advent of Jay-Z and Will Smith. That’s how we got the investment and it’s wonderful to have their support.
What’s your northern star?
Our North Star goes out at night and it’s exciting to see that we’ve just reached 2.5 million. We are strongly in biophilia and that spending time outdoors is essential for human health and happiness.
What happened when the pandemic happened?
Our business fell by about 80% in March. In an effort to flatten the curve, we really encouraged cancellations to help others meet existing shelter restrictions, which was complicated because our hosts literally have that income. So we present a role in which other people may decide to donate the price of their and one in 4 decides to participate. But it was a difficult time. We had to make some layoffs to make sure that we were in a position for the company’s long-term good fortune and that we implemented it for PPP. Things started to be replaced in May and we were able to bring other people back.
Now the call is so superior that it is nothing like what we have noticed before. We were promoting absolutely in California before the wildfires. Reserves are 3 times higher than last year and owners earn tens of thousands of dollars on the platform in the first few months. Site traffic has increased twice compared to last year. Covid-19 has generated greater interest in outdoor reports and we found that other people were traveling 40% closer to the house compared to the same period last year. We have security measures in position such as contactless check-in and hire your own computer on shared sites. Half of our lists have one place, making us a popular destination for those who distance themselves socially.
We are in the most productive monetary position we’ve ever had. Our 35 people are fully distributed and we rent as we expand the toolkit on our platform. Our biggest challenge now is locating enough classified ads to meet demand.
How do you monetize?
We take a 10% commission on the value set through the hosts. They have their own values and manage their own schedules, and we build teams to help them manage their businesses.
What are your ambitions for the 3 years?
I expect a force to prevent habitat destruction and turn the climate narrative replaced by misfortune and guilt into moves that gain advantages for all.
I would like to speak to an environment minister in Ecuador and tell him that I know that you believe that logging in your rainforest is the most productive option, but we have an economic engine that offers a greater choice because it allows its owners to make money while being smart land managers.
My purpose is to have Hipcamp in the highest of countries in the global so that I can report quality for the well-being of our community. We don’t need to grow so fast where we compromise our values.
This verbal exchange has been modified and condensed for clarity.
Award-winning journalist covering artificial intelligence, robots, space, customer technology, transmission, e-commerce, security, surveillance, knowledge privacy, financial technology, venture capital and start-ups.
Award-winning journalist covering artificial intelligence, robots, space, customer technology, transmission, e-commerce, security, surveillance, knowledge privacy, financial technology, venture capital and home culture for Fast Company, Business Insider, VentureBeat and SF Business Times. Keep @contentnow.