JackRabbit Systems, a developer of a white-label online travel bookings software, has raised $1.33 million in funding from Kickstart Seed Fund and Sun Mountain Capital. This brings the company’s total funding to $3.7 million
JackRabbit’s main software, BookDirect, allows any website to embed a direct hotel booking system on their sites. Similar to Expedia, BookDirect gathers rates and availability information from lodging properties, and displays that information to consumers looking to book rooms. Consumers can then click from the search engine to the lodging property website to complete the booking.
The most common use cases for the company’s software have been for state and city travel sites, says founder Andrew Van Luchene, who was formerly the sixth employee at Priceline. For example, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority integrated JackRabbit’s software into its site. Since 2007, BookDirect has originated four million leads to hotels.
Of course, the online travel space is crowded, and full of worthy competitors, including Kayak, Expedia and even Bing and now Google. But JackRabbit’s platform seems to have a loyal following, so perhaps it will be able to compete in the space.