Online booking and reservation system BookingBug has been bootstrapped for some time now, but today it announces the inking of a solid Angel round to the tune of $350,000 from a small group of Angels. Among them, Philip Crawford (ex-Oracle, current chairman of Lombard Risk plc and Avanti Capital) is joining the board.
BookingBug enables businesses to share their availability – by hour, day, week or as classes, courses or events – and take bookings and enquiries online. The system is both realtime and distributed in that it’s booking and enquiry widgets can be embedded onto other sites, or affiliate partners and through social media.
Glenn Shoosmith, the company’s founder and CEO admits it’s “only a small round” but it’s designed to “pursue more aggressive growth” – by bringing on more key hires – and is in preparation for a further, larger, funding round in the future.
BookingBug recently partnered with Levi’s to allow customers to book personal shopping time in 250 stores across 22 countries in 6 languages as part of their Curve ID campaign.
Back in 2009 it signed a bunch of partners to an affiliate scheme. While Bookfresh and Libersy are another competitors, they lack the innovative affiliates model.
It also works with the wiki-style business directory Brownbook, that lists 27 million business globally.