Travel guide digital disrupter celebrates £1m in seed funding
A digital platform that allows experts to build and share personalised travel guides is celebrating reaching £1m in seed funding.
Pearlshare now boasts the support of a number of angel investors, including early-stage backers of firms such as LinkedIn, LoveFilm and Wonga.
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Its aim is to take up part of the $13bn travel information market, which is made up of TripAdvisor, Conde Nast, Time Out, Lonely Planet and others.
The startup was founded in 2014 by chairman Michael Liebreich – a former Olympic skier who sold his last business, New Energy Finance, to Bloomberg in 2009 – James O’Day and Oliver Brooks.
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Liebreich, who also founded IfYouTravel, which later became Lastminute.com, said: “We are honoured by the vote of confidence by our seed investors.
“The travel and leisure information space is a $13bn market and it’s ripe for disruption, as demonstrated by the IPO of Time Out and the acquisition of Vurb.”