Airbnb-Style Business For Borrowing Boats Heavily Oversubscribed

The business that is striving to be the Airbnb for boats has secured £1.5m of funding to fuel its future growth and aims to open up boating to a wider audience.

Borrow A Boat is an online boat charter marketplace for boat rental worldwide. Its marketplace lists over 16,000 boats for charter and lets private boat owners list their boat for charter. 

Additional extras are also available, including kayaks and stand-up paddle boards.

The Borrow A Boat Mobile App allows users to search for and book boats near to them in any of 60 countries worldwide, with same-day boarding.

The fast-growing business has secured £1.5m through a combination of a lead investor VC (Edition Capital), individuals using crowd-funding platform, Crowdcube, and a number of high net worth investors. 

Irwin Mitchell Corporate partner, James Paton-Philip, advised Borrow A Boat on the fundraising, assisted by Ben Gale (Associate) and Jeff Carvell (Solicitor).

Expert Opinion

“Borrow A Boat aims to open up the world of boating and this latest fundraising will provide capital to further raise its profile. We were delighted to work with this very exciting brand and look forward to seeing all those involved enjoy future success with the business.” James Paton-Philip - Partner

Matt Ovenden, founder of Borrow A Boat, said: “Irwin Mitchell helped manage a multi-faceted funding round for us which included a crowdfunding element, a VC, and a number of angel investors, and they helped us knit all of that together and collectively close and deliver our funding round.”

Later this year, Borrow A Boat will be the headline sponsor of the Southampton International Boat Show, the UK’s largest boat show.