St. Petersburg-based startup Anchor Yacht Charters raised $1.8 million in seed funding from new and existing investors in January.
The fundraising is a "top-off" of seed capital now totaling more than $4 million across two raises. Past investors, including Austin-based Silverton Partners, participated in the round, and new investors joined, including a veteran executive who will take on a leadership role. The funding will expedite a project to push the platform into cities worldwide, CEO and founder Zach Hatraf told Tampa Bay Inno.
"As always, there are a million steps before you get to your end result, and that's what I see," Hatraf said. "... Now we have the resources we need to be able to put in the work, to be able to one day get to where we want to be."
The $1.8 million raise nearly completed the $2.17 million offering, which will be open for several more weeks, Hatraf said. In 2021, the company raised $2.5 million in an oversubscribed seed round.
Anchor Yacht Charters, owned under Anchor Technology Holdings Inc., was founded in Missouri in 2017 and moved to St. Petersburg in 2018. Tampa Bay Inno named the company — then operating as Anchor Yacht Rentals — a Startup to Watch in 2022. The company's platform organizes private yacht trips by connecting users, yacht owners and captains.
Eleven investors participated in the $1.8 million fundraising. John Giglio, a new investor in the seed round and a Sarasota marine entrepreneur, joined Anchor in a part-time leadership capacity. Giglio will help access new revenue streams and improve Anchor's service, Hatraf said.
Giglio previously led Venice-based Freedom Boat Co. for nearly 10 years until it was acquired by Brunswick Corp., one of the largest marine manufacturing companies in the U.S. In 2023, Freedom Boat Co. was the fifth-largest franchisor in Tampa Bay, according to Tampa Bay Business Journal research.
"[Giglio] is going to be instrumental in taking this company from, what we like to say, a backyard dock to the biggest and best marinas in the world," Hatraf said. "This increase in size puts us on the map for so many different types of partnership opportunities with the largest dealers in the world, the largest brokers in the world and the largest travel agencies in the world."
The seed round also marks a renewed push for a Series A. Since its last raise, Anchor has watched disposable income and the Covid-caused boom in boating decrease, alongside thinning venture capital.
"You can't rely on raising capital anymore to save you and to grow," Hatraf said. "So we shifted and said in [2023], 'Look, all things need to be focused on profitability, even at a smaller size.'"
Today, it's an eight-figure business with a growing market share. It is a more efficient business, and operating expenditures are decreasing. But Hatraf is focusing on each move more than anticipating the end goal, he said.
"The right tools do not exist yet, and that's fortunate for us," Hatraf said. "Our competitors haven't gotten it right, we haven't gotten it right, and nobody else before us has got it right. So that's where I see it. I still see the trophy has yet to be won."
