SA’s Travelstart announces investment deal with HarbourVest

SA travel booking company Travelstart yesterday announced that global private markets investment firm HarbourVest, which has $58-billion under asset management, will become a significant funding partner for the company.

Travelstart, which was founded in Sweden by Swedish born Stephan Ekbergh (pictured above) in 1999 before setting up in South Africa in 2006, did not disclose what amount in funding the investment firm would be committing to the travel booking company.

The announcement follows a 2016 investment of $40-million from Amadeus Capital Partners and MTN in Travelstart.

The online travel company said in a statement yesterday that HarbourVest will support Travelstart’s further expansion into new geographic markets and growth in new verticals in the continents $194-billion tourism and travel market.

“The partnership with HarbourVest is a confirmation of the future opportunity in online travel in this continent, our business and our team,” Ekbergh, said in the statement. “We are very excited to have them on board.”

HarbourVest will support Travelstart to expand further into new geographic markets and grow in new verticals

The latest investment comes on the back of MTNs Asset Realisation Programme. MTN and Travelstart will continue its commercial relationship.

In December 2017 Travelstart announced that it had bought an undisclosed majority stake in Cape Town-based SafariNow.com — South Africa’s largest accommodation booking website.

Read more: Travelstart acquires majority stake in accommodation site SafariNow.com
Read more: Travel booking site Travelstart lands $40m, asserts investor confidence

Featured image: Travelstart founder and CEO Stephan Ekbergh (Successness via Youtube)