Fishing isn’t necessarily sexy. But it turns out that it’s one of the most popular participation sports in the world, or at the very least one of the most profitable.
Amberjack looks to capitalize on that by offering a service that lets users book fishing trips from outfitters using their own filters and preferences without having to endlessly search the web for the right trip.
Amberjack co-founder Jerome Tufte says that the fishing industry is worth $40 billion annually in the United States alone, but that the experience of booking a fishing trip is broken without a centralized search and booking platform.
Amberjack wants to fill that space, and has raised $500k in seed funding led by BoxGroup/David Tisch to make it happen. The round also included participation from Slow Ventures, Prehype, Scott Belsky, Jay Livingston and Josh Abramson.
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In many ways Amberjack is modeled after Airbnb in that outfitters can add their own profiles to the platform and customize them at will, with Amberjack taking a small slice of each successfully booked transaction. Using the platform — from browsing on the user side or setting up a profile on the outfitter side — is free. Users can search for trips based on their own criteria or take a look at curated featured trips that are put together by humans at Amberjack.
The service is launching now out of beta, and interested users can head over here to check out the website.