A St. Petersburg-based tech startup that helps users rent boats and yachts has closed an oversubscribed seed round for $2.5 million.
Anchor Yacht Rentals received the funding entirely from Austin-based Silverton Partners, Zach Hatraf, founder and CEO of Anchor, announced Monday.
"Raising money has been really difficult because of understanding the boating industry, the nuances and federal regulations and differentiation between us and other players ... it takes a bit of a specialist," Hatraf told Tampa Bay Inno. He added the company was originally seeking only $1.5 million. "We found a partner in Silverton. They understand marketplaces in general and have taken companies similar to the same size as Anchor to over billion-dollar valuations."
Hatraf launched the company in 2017, originally as an "Uber for boats" after his best friend was killed in a boating accident at the popular Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. Roughly a year later, he pivoted to yachts and now offers a patent-pending technology platform compliant with the U.S. Coast Guard. The platform connects private yacht owners, licensed captains and customers looking to rent yachts under one roof.
After the pivot, Hatraf moved to the St. Petersburg area, bringing the company with him.
"It wasn’t home to a thousand smaller competitors; it was an underserved market," he said, adding the company later became part of the Tampa Bay Wave's accelerator program. "We could’ve gone after the jungle and gone to Miami, but we wanted to go to the trees and built a market that didn't exist before ... and it looks like we chose the right path. Tampa Bay has been an awesome place to start a business and grow a business."
The company now has 33 employees, with a majority of them local in the Tampa Bay region, and $10 million in sales, according to Hatraf. The latest infusion of funding will be used to expand to 12 cities in the next 12 months, adding to the already-current seven cities the platform is already in. He also hopes to hire an additional 20 employees in the next eight to nine months in the region.
A $2.5 million seed round is pretty standard, but Hatraf is hopeful to close a $15 million to $20 million Series A round in the next 12 months. That type of funding, especially in the still-growing Tampa Bay tech region, is relatively large – especially when it would make the company's valuation between $80 million to $100 million.
And Hatraf continued tossing out eye-popping numbers: He hopes to become the first-ever "narwhal," a term he jokingly used referring to the first marine-based unicorn, or private company valued at over $1 billion.
"I truly believe we can get there in five years — that's really realistic," he said. "If we get there in four, that's great; if we get there in six, no pressure. I think the billion-dollar valuation will only come when we solve the problem, which is illegal, unsafe charters."
