LuggageHero shows that investing in travel startups is not over
by Startacus Admin
LuggageHero, a leading luggage-storage network, is bucking the trend by showing that investing in travel startups is not fully over during the COVID-19 pandemic and crisis.
Within 48 hours of opening its campaign privately to current investors, in late March, the Danish-based company had reached its goal by raising €329,000. The crowd-sourced campaign, LuggageHero’s second on the Seedrs platform, is currently overfunded at €355,000 and will remain open until mid-May.
About 35% of the more than 420 investors in the current round are returning beneficial owners from LuggageHero’s first Seedrs campaign, in 2019. Also participating again in this campaign is the venture capital investor Nordic Eye, topping off last year’s investment of €1 million with an additional €120,000.
Ivana Dobrilovic from LuggageHero recently shared her thoughts on the tech trends that will impact the travel and tourism industry in 2020, so with all the
uncertainty that has hit the travel industry during Q1 we are delighted that LuggageHero seem to have been able to buck the industry trend. “Not only will this investment allow us to continue to grow, we think it speaks volumes in terms of optimism,” said Jannik Lawaetz, CEO and co-founder of the hourly on-demand luggage storage platform, operating in 40 major cities in North America and Europe.
The on-demand storage service has more than 1,000 storage locations in existing businesses, including shops, cafes and hotels. Since it started in 2016, it has stored luggage for more than 2.2 million hours.
“I’ll be the first to admit that initially I wasn’t sure how it would go,” Lawaetz said. “Like most travel-related companies, our business is at a near standstill. But as soon as I started putting out feelers, people reacted very positively.”
Lawaetz sees several reasons for the enthusiastic responses, reactions he believes will show up in other sectors of the travel industry later this year.
“First, people want to feel they can believe in something, invest in something during these trying times, especially something hopeful, like travel,” he said. “We firmly believe that travel will be back, and clearly so do our shareholders.”
During this slow period, LuggageHero has been able to keep its momentum going by focusing on the future. It also is grateful to be based in Denmark, a country that quickly subsidized small business owners.
“While we take the current health and economic situation extremely seriously, we also are optimistic that not only will travel return, there will be a pent-up demand for it,” Lawaetz said. “We are poised to capture that, even more so now with this new funding round.”
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Published on: 1st May 2020
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