• Greek online ferry booking platform Ferryhopper raised €5 million in a new investment round.
• The round was led by a London-based venture capital firm Piton Capital, and joined by existing investors LAUNCHub Ventures and Metavallon VC.
• With the new funding, the company will improve its existing services and continue expansion in Europe.
Founded in 2017 to simplify the booking of ferry tickets, Ferryhopper has grown from a team of 4 founders to a company employing more than 110 professionals, serving more than 3 million travelers, and offering ferry routes across 400 destinations in 15 countries.
According to the Greek company, Ferryhopper’s mobile app has been downloaded more than 600,000 times. Ferryhopper plans to use the fresh capital from the latest round to strengthen its position in the Mediterranean market. The startup already holds a dominant presence in Greece, Spain, and Italy.
The Greek traveltech plans to continue improving its services and products, and expand in more European regions.
Transforming how people travel by ferry
According to the company’s CEO Christos Spatharakis, sea travel has made significant progress towards the modernization of services in the past years, which also aligns with Ferryhopper’s vision.
“From day one, our vision is to transform the way people travel by ferry and we are constantly evolving our product offering to create a top-notch, seamless experience for our customers around the world. In the last two years, we have used our learnings from being the #1 ferry OTA in Greece to create a playbook for the Mediterranean which has allowed us to enter Italy and Spain with notable success. As tourism rebounds this year, we are looking at our most successful and demanding season so far,” Spatharakis said in a statement.
According to Myrto Papathanou from Metavallon VC, the expectations for Ferryhopper are great, especially with its expansion beyond the Mediterranean.
“Since 2019 when we first invested in Ferryhopper, the company keeps growing and executing its strategy immaculately. After LAUNCHubjoined us in 2020, we are now excited to be welcoming Piton on board. We expect great things in the next few years, as the company expands its offering beyond the Mediterranean, to Northern Europe and around the world.” Papathanou tells The Recursive.
Additionally, the co-investment in Ferryhopper with LAUNCHub in 2020 was the first co-investment between two funds in the region and they’ve had an excellent cooperation since, she added.
“Since we first backed Ferryhopper in 2020, the company has achieved amazing growth combined with a well-managed profitable business. The expansion in different markets in Europe and the positive reviews from customers, give us further confidence about the future of Ferryhopper as the dominant player in that market,” Stanislav Sirakov, general partner at LAUNCHub Ventures tells The Recursive.
For Mira Mihaylova, who led the investment on behalf of Piton Capital, the Greek company has managed to build a product with a truly great user experience in a space that remains under-digitized.
“We were particularly impressed by the organic and word-of-mouth-driven nature of user acquisition, the great user reviews and the impressive market share in their core market. The team’s product-centricity and strong focus on making the ferry booking experience seamless gives us full confidence in their ability to become a leading player in Europe and beyond,” Mihaylova said.
Spatharakis also thanked the investors for supporting the company on this journey and in the next steps towards the transformation of the ferry experience for customers around the world.
