Harvest Hosts has raised $37 million in funding for its membership plan that lets RV campers keep overnight in cool locations such as wineries.
Stripes led the investment in the Vail, Colorado-based enterprise, which has noticed a surge throughout the pandemic as more people today seek to go on vacations utilizing significant recreational automobiles (RVs).
For a membership charge of about $80 a year, Harvest Hosts lets travelers keep at secure, one-of-a-sort overnight experiences, although supporting tiny companies such as wineries, breweries, farms, golf courses, museums, and other attractions in North America, mentioned CEO Joel Holland in an interview with VentureBeat.
Harvest Hosts has a network of more than 1,900 areas exactly where people today can keep at no charge. The travelers are encouraged to invest revenue at the areas, which variety from a lavender farm to a skydiving center and all the things in among. It’s a new sort of camping expertise, Holland mentioned. In 2020, Harvest Host’s members doubled and they spent more than $25 million in locations they visited.
As the RV market continues to boom, RVers require excellent locations to keep. According to RV Industry Association, 46 million Americans program to take an RV trip in the next 12 months. In an work to alleviate the expanding camping inventory dilemma, Harvest Hosts is partnering with thousands of tiny companies across North America to provide RVers with option overnight experiences although also assisting to fuel the economy and maintain tiny companies afloat.
Chris Carey, companion at Stripes, mentioned in a statement that his firm surveyed thousands of RVers and dozens of hosts to study about the experiences, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Lightning Partners acted as exclusive economic adviser and Cooley served as legal adviser for Harvest Hosts. Dechert served as legal adviser for Stripes.
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The enterprise will use the revenue to obtain more hosts and customers by means of marketing on platforms like Facebook.
Holland mentioned the enterprise was expanding speedy prior to the pandemic but then all the things went on hold final March. But Holland stayed the course.
“Our hypothesis was travel is a basic human necessity,” he mentioned. “People are going to travel, but not on airplanes and not international.”
Business doubled in the final eight months of the year. For the months of January and February, company was up 400%.
How it got began
The enterprise was began in 2010 by Don and Kim Greene, a couple in Arizona who constructed an initial network of 600 locations for people today to stop by. Holland, a tech entrepreneur who sold his firm Storyblocks, had a comparable thought and identified them when he was performing his study. He purchased the enterprise from them and merged it with an additional enterprise, RV Golf, and started fleshing out the network.
“It was built on a WordPress website, with no apps, no marketing or advertising,” Holland mentioned. “And that’s why I was excited about it. I thought the concept was amazing. And more people needed it.”
Holland recruited some of his good friends and utilised the identical playbook that he had for expanding Storyblocks. While the Greenes drove off into the sunset, Holland set up the enterprise in Vail, Colorado. At very first, he identified it really hard to clarify to feasible hosts. But the typical winery now tends to make an additional $13,000 a year from the RV members straight.
“It’s really simple as a few if you’re looking for more customers and really friendly people,” Holland mentioned. “Most of our hosts stick around for years because it’s a two-way street.”
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The enterprise now has 15 people today, and the enterprise is operating as a totally virtual firm.
The requirement for becoming a host is getting a attractive location to keep, Holland mentioned. There’s an underground salt museum in Kansas, and the world’s biggest train yard in Nebraska. The RV campers are self-contained, with energy, water, and sewer amenities.
“It’s a way to get away from the campground for a day and change it up,” Holland mentioned. “This movement was already happening before the pandemic. It’s also a movement that gets back to supporting local, buying organic. People are falling back in love with exploring their own backyard and seeing all the national parks and state parks in cool small towns.”