French start-up,  Click & Boat has raised €1 million from Parisian investment company Olma Fund to fuel its global expansion. This comes just two weeks after the peer-to-peer boat rental platform acquired its main competitor Sailsharing.

The start-up aims to catalyse its international roll-out by hiring more people, and launching new services specifically for its European clients. 

Click & Boat was founded in 2013 by two young French entrepreneurs: Edouard Gorioux and Jérémy Bismuth, who realised just how inefficient the boat rental industry is. Millions of boats are docked in European harbours, which is an added cost for owners. Click & Boat allows owners to monetise their investment, just like how Airbnb does for living spaces.  

After the launch of Click & Yacht, a platform dedicated to luxury units, Click & Boat plans to launch new digital platforms and applications for European customers. “We identified numerous needs in the digital boat rental market. Generally speaking, boating represent a sector where innovations and new ideas usually experiences difficulties to emerge. Click & Boat will launch three brand new services in the next twelve months,” adds Gorioux.

With ambitions to dominate the peer-to-peer boat rental sector in Europe, Click & Boat aims to grow its €10 million revenue even further this year. The platform has over 8,000 boats online across 22 countries and 362 harbours.

“We are predicting some new acquisition in other foreign countries within the next two years in order to consolidate the market at the European level,” co-founder Jérémy Bismuth adds.