| HalalBooking had another successful angel investment round in July 2023, representing the next stage of its Series B round. This saw $2.5 million of new cash invested in July at a company valuation of $102 million.
This is added to the $5 million convertible loan invested in 2021, which has now been converted into Series B shares at a 20% discount from the above valuation. Thus the total for the round so far is $7.5 million. The round is capped at a maximum of $10 million to be completed by the end of the year. This means that $2.5 million more is available as a headroom amount to be subscribed to at the same valuation.
Elnur Seyidli, the CEO of HalalBooking, said: “This is still a relatively small angel round and the company’s cap table remains mostly under the ownership of the founders. This investment, combined with cash we generate from our healthy 17% profit margin, will help us to accelerate our 2023-24 growth and be in a stronger position to reach our $1 billion unicorn goal sooner. There is a lot of interest from institutional investors, who have been closely watching our growth since the pandemic, which is leading us to consider a larger, institutional $30-40 million Series C round to further accelerate our growth rate. This would increase the likelihood of reaching the $1 billion goal in 3-4 years, rather than in, say, 6-7 years of more organic growth.”
In fact, the company is already seeing significant growth in 2023, enjoying a record sales month in July, reaching $10 million in sales – 45% growth, compared to July 2022.
HalalBooking was launched in 2014 and without any VC funding was growing exponentially, reinvesting its profits, each year until the pandemic. In 2019 it reached sales of $31 million. In 2020, due to Covid, sales plummeted to a mere $8 million, but the company managed not to lay off any of its 50 staff and in 2021 it bounced back to profitability, exceeding 2019 levels, with sales reaching $36 million. In 2022 it grew by around 50% again to $52 million. Based on current sales, the forecast for 2023 is to reach $75 million, representing another 45% year on year growth. This is in spite of many negative external market conditions including the cost of living crisis, expensive flight tickets and the earthquake in Türkiye, one of its most popular destinations. The company aims to reach $600 million sales in 4-5 years. |
