Luxury villa specialist secures £1m funding
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Edge Retreats, a London-based tech startup specialising in luxury villas worldwide, has closed a seed funding round of close to $1m.
Led by entrepreneurial VC fund Lean Investments with participation from current investor Forward Partners, this positions the company for expansion in 2016.
Launched in 2015, Edge Retreats is the first global curated marketplace for booking both luxury villas and concierge services online.
Offering access to the world’s most exclusive villa rentals – whose owners rarely want to use mass-market products like Airbnb, Edge Retreats combines high-end digital travel on a global scale, backed by a bespoke concierge service all available to book online.
The completion of the funding round reflects travel journalist turned tech entrepreneur and Edge Retreats’ founder and CEO Luke McCormick’s predictions of the scope of the luxury villa rentals market, which he estimates to be worth at least $23 billion by the end of 2016. With online travel sales growing at 12% annually, he sees plenty of room for growth.
McCormick said: “After getting great support from Forward Partners over the past year, we’re excited to be partnering with Lean Investments to accelerate the growth of our company. This investment will allow us to continue to build a world-class product while increasing the number of properties and countries that we feature. We’re pleased to be simplifying the process of finding and booking luxury villas around the world while offering exceptional concierge service. The story so far has been incredible, and I hope this next stage in our story will be even more exciting.”
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