Groningen-based Tubber is growing rapidly and has long been the market leader in the Netherlands. Now the boat rental platform is preparing to scale up to foreign markets at an accelerated pace, thanks in part to growth funding from the NOM.
'Our ultimate goal is to make a sailing vacation on blue water accessible to everyone,' says Anne de Vries. The Tubber founder thus indicates that the ambition of the boat rental platform goes beyond its own national borders. The Groningen-based scale-up is already active in a number of European countries, but sees plenty of opportunities to scale up even more internationally. To realize this growth ambition, Tubber recently raised an investment of 1 million euros from the NOM.
Tubber, active since 2010, is a booking platform that connects professional lessors as charter companies with people who want to rent a sailing yacht, catamaran or motorboat. 'People choose us because they want to enjoy a carefree boating vacation in Croatia or Greece, for example,' Anne emphasizes. 'Hence we work exclusively with carefully selected professional boat owners. The platform offers a choice of more than 16,000 boats in more than 750 destinations worldwide, with a focus on the Mediterranean. A fixed contact person, called shipmate, guides you through the booking process and is also available 24/7 afterwards.'
Smarter and better
Over the years, Tubber has become the undisputed market leader in the Netherlands. The company had been ready to spread its wings internationally for some time. Corona, however, put a kink in the works. 'G-Force Capital had just come on board as an investor at the time,' recalls CEO Tessa de Vries. 'We were really in the starting blocks. Yet corona brought us a lot of good things. We were forced to automate our processes even smarter. At the same time, we worked very hard during that period to further optimize the scalability of the platform. Instead of putting our plan on hold, we put it back on the table and tried to make it even better.
Nice base
The efforts did not go unnoticed. Because in early 2023, G-Force Capital and Move Fast Ventures, together with investor Marnix van der Ploeg, who was closely involved in Booking.com's international success, decided to make a follow-up investment. 'This laid a great foundation for rapid international growth,' says Anne. 'We immediately thought: this is the moment to approach NOM for a capital injection. NOM once helped us make our business plan investor-ready. The contact has always remained. We are true northerners and knew that NOM fitted our way of doing business very well. Ambitious, but from an open and down-to-earth culture.'
Shaking up traditional market
The NOM proved to be of the same opinion and provided Tubber with the desired growth funding. 'Tessa and Anne are enthusiastic sailing enthusiasts and have turned their passion into a fast-growing business,' argues Boudewijn Hulst, investment manager at NOM. 'Tubber consists of a strong team, supplemented by excellent advisors, and also has a broad network of professional boat owners. One of the pillars of our investment policy is the ''smarter'' theme. An innovative and scalable company like Tubber, with the potential to shake up a traditional market, fits well with this.''
Successful launch
After a successful launch in the United Kingdom earlier this year, Tubber recently went live in Germany. Soon, the booking platform also aims to provide Scandinavian sailors with an unforgettable vacation. 'Only once the platform is well established in a specific country will we roll out further,' Tessa explains. 'We have the tide with us, because since corona sailing vacations have become increasingly popular worldwide.'