UK-based HalalBooking.com, which offers halal-friendly travel services, said on Wednesday that it has raised $2 million in a pre-series A funding round with a valuation of $50 million.
The holiday booking platform said a lead investor has already committed $1 million, and is in the process of finalizing a list of other participants, with the final round total likely to be around $2-2.5 million and set to be completed in October.
“Initially we were planning to hold a larger $10 million Series A round, but decided that it would be better to do a smaller $2-3 million round this year. This will allow us to accelerate our growth plans for 2020, and then perhaps do a large $10-20 million Series A round in 2020 and achieve our $1 billion unicorn goal by 2024,” Elnur Seyidli, CEO of HalalBooking, said in a statement.
“This investment will allow us to further accelerate our existing growth for 2020 by increasing marketing spend in our key markets,” Seyidli said.
In the first half of 2019, HalalBooking said it recorded 60 percent gowth in net revenue compared to the same period in 2018. The website in July garnered $4.5 million worth of bookings.
HalalBooking has over 300,000 registered users from around 84 different countries. It was launched by a group of British and German Muslims in 2014 to tap into the halal economy sector, for which there is an appetite for in the UK and across Europe due to a fast-growing Muslim population.
“As the market for halal-friendly travel grows worldwide and awareness increases around this $230 billion niche, we are attracting more and more interest,” Seyidli added.
Source: Al Arabiya
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