SMB Business Management Startup Booker Books $35 Million In New Funding: The SLMA

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SMB Business Management Startup Booker Books $35 Million In New Funding

From the section: Lead Mgmt News

March, 2015 |

Posted yesterday (3/2 by Ryan Lawler (@ryanlawler )

As more business moves online, service industry professionals are leveraging new tools to improve how they connect with their customers. To serve those customers, Booker has raised $35 million in new funding to help small- and medium-sized businesses providing services in the offline world to manage customer relationships online.

The Series C funding was led by Medina Capital along with new investors Jump Capital and Signal Peak Ventures. Existing investors Bain Capital Ventures, Revolution Ventures, Grotech Ventures, and TDF Ventures also participated, bringing total funding to $80 million since its founding.

The new financing comes as Booker looks to capitalize on the trend of SMBs adopting online SaaS tools for managing their businesses offline. While many competitors in the market offer what Booker CEO Josh McCarter calls point solutions, his company hopes to provide an end-to-end solution that includes scheduling, customer relationship management, point-of-sale payment processing, marketing and loyalty programs, as well as detailed analytics.

Recognizing that different SMB verticals have different needs, Booker has built out different configurations based on the type of business that has signed up. While it got its start serving the health and wellness category, mostly around spas and salons, over time Booker has expanded to serve beauty, home improvement, and other professional services.

Booker’s customers generally range from $250,000 to a $1 million in revenue, according to McCarter. They typically pay around $100 to $150 per month for the platform, which varies based on vertical and type of business. Pricing is based on the configuration and features each business decides to use.

That part of the business is growing fast. Last year, Booker had more than $2 billion worth of transactions processed on its platform. It’s now doing more than 3 million bookings a month, and had more than $200 million transacted on the platform last month.

With so much business happening on its platform, it’s no surprise that Booker was also able to attract First Data as a strategic investor. While the company isn’t saying anything about how the strategic nature of the investment will change its business, you can bet that having a payment processor on board could significantly improve its operating costs.

In addition to its business management platform, Booker also provides marketing services to help businesses find new customers through online and mobile channels and takes a small fee for making those connections. Since it has the schedule and availability of businesses on the platform, Booker can enable customers to book instantly, even from third-party websites.

According to McCarter, Booker can enable booking on a service provider’s website, as well as mobile web and mobile apps. It can also provide calendar and booking on platform’s like an SMB’s Facebook page.

With the newest round of funding, Booker plans to expand its platform to cover more business verticals and to integrate with more marketing channels. By doing so, the company hopes to serve more small and medium-sized businesses and find customers on sites like Yelp, where they’re already searching for service providers.

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