A Minnesota startup that applies the AirBnb model to hunting — providing an online platform that matches hunters and landowners with space to rent — has raised $1 million in seed round funding.
St. Cloud's Great North Ventures led the funding round for Brainerd-based Hunting Land Rentals By Owner Inc. (HLRBO), with additional participation by Comeback Capital of Cleveland, Minneapolis-based Gopher Angels and Right Side Capital of San Francisco.
HLRBO provides hunters with access to landowners nationwide looking to lease their property for hunting through an online platform. The concept is similar to anyone familiar with AirBnb or VRBO, though the revenue model is a bit different: Listing available land is free to property owners, while hunters looking to rent hunting land pay a subscription fee to access the platform.
The company was founded in 2016 by CEO and Founder Heath Schubert and grew from a hobby into a business. His brother, who is an avid hunter, came up with the idea after he lost touch with people he used to lease hunting land from. Schubert said the site has more than 87,000 users and 3,600 landowners in the U.S. and Canada.
Rob Weber, Managing Partner at Great North Ventures and Jeff Peterson, member of Gopher Angels and former CFO of Cardinal Glass Industries, will join the company’s board of directors, according to a press release.
“Heath is among the scrappiest and most resourceful founders I’ve come across since starting our VC fund 7 years ago," Weber said in a press release. "To be able to bootstrap HLRBO to the national scale they’ve already reached is beyond impressive. And the market adoption of HLRBO is showing no signs of slowing down in adoption."
The company plans to use the funds to launch a mobile application, expand its landowner base and extend its reach to hunters.
"Eighty-seven percent of our traffic is mobile and I think an app would be a good outlet for our users," Schubert said. "It will hopefully be launched next fall."
HLRBO also has offices in Minneapolis.
