Sekr Raises $2.25M in Seed Funding to Improve the Outdoor Travel Experience For All

SAN DIEGO, Feb. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Sekr, the mobile platform simplifying the outdoor travel experience, today announced the close of a $2.25M seed financing round to further its mission of empowering people to pursue connection with the outdoors and its communities. The round was led by Storyteller Overland, Backstage Capital, Techstars, Ad Astra Ventures, Crescent Ridge Ventures, and Andy Ballester, co-founder of GoFundMe.

Sekr is a women and minority-founded, crowdsourced mobile platform making every step of the outdoor travel planning experience easier, safer, and more social. From full-time digital nomads to the occasional road tripper, the company is creating an inclusive community with  access to 50K+ campsites, including the nation's largest database of free campsites. After year one of the COVID-19 pandemic, interest in outdoor travel spiked—with notable increases among active and prospective campers according to Statista. Correspondingly, Sekr saw a massive 1530% increase in user sessions from May 2020 to May 2021 and a 492% increase in app users from August 2020 to August 2021.

"As women-led companies received only 2.4% of venture capital in 2020, a decline from 2019, this raise is not only significant for its testament to the need of technological innovation in the camping industry, but also an important move in diversifying whom venture capitalists fund," said Breanne Acio, co-founder and CEO of Sekr. "We're proud to work with a growing team of investors, employees, partners, and outdoor enthusiasts  that are in pursuit of a higher quality of life through safe outdoor travel and community."

"The camping industry is one of the only hospitality verticals yet to successfully adopt technology, and Sekr seized the opportunity to digitize campsite inventory at scale, transforming the outdoor planning process from a frustrating loop of hours of failed Google searches into something consumers can do by themselves," said Jeffrey Hunter, CEO at Storyteller Overland and lead investor of Sekr's funding round. "Like the leaders before them in the hotel and vacation rental verticals, we believe the Sekr team is uniquely positioned to have the largest influence and impact on the outdoor travel planning experience for the nearly three-fourths of Americans who participate in outdoor travel annually."

The funds will be used to expand Sekr's reservable inventory and grow its community initiatives, events and forums that connect people online and in-person, such as its Project Respect Outdoors (PRO) coalition. Sekr's inaugural PRO event was held November 4-7, 2021 in Escalante, Utah and will unite womxn business owners, non-profit leaders and grassroots change makers and their allies with the goal of bringing awareness to shared experiences and taking scalable action to evolve the outdoor industry into a more inclusive space.

For more information, visit https://sekr.com. Download the app for iOS here or for Android here.

About Sekr:
Sekr is a crowdsourced mobile platform making every step of the outdoor travel planning experience easier, safer, and more social. From full-time digital nomads to the occasional road tripper, the company is creating an inclusive community through access to 50K+ campsites, including the nation's largest database of free campsites. Founded in 2018, Sekr's dedicated team partners with local non-profit organizations, including Leave No Trace and Tread Lightly!, to promote responsible recreation and the conservation of the outdoors. The company is also committed to addressing the lack of diversity in outdoor spaces through its coalition, Project Respect Outdoors, which unites women and minorities to take scalable action to evolve the outdoor industry into a more inclusive space. Follow Sekr on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

SOURCE Sēkr