Mallard Bay is an Airbnb for guided hunting and fishing

According to a survey by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Americans will spend more than $144.8 billion on fishing and hunting in 2022 alone. Guided hunting and fishing tours are an important part of the industry, but they remain largely offline. Reservations are made over the phone and paid by physical check or cash. Mallard Bay is looking to change that.

The Houston-based startup is a marketplace that allows hunting and fishing consumers to find and book guided tours much like booking a hotel online. Mallard Bay is also a vertical SaaS platform that allows apparel merchants to connect their back offices to the Internet and provide additional services such as marketing.

The startup this week announced the completion of a $4.6 million Series A round led by Soul Venture Partners, with participation from existing investor Acadian Capital Ventures and other angel investors. Mallard Bay co-founder and CEO Logan Meaux told TechCrunch he got the idea for the company after going on a failed hunting trip with his father while in college. He thought he had booked a three-day guided duck hunt in Oklahoma. When they arrived they found that the hunt was double booked and their only option was to join 13 other people for a day hunt. Meaux never fired a shot.

At the time, Meaux was working for his father’s startup Waitr, which raised $24 million in venture capital before exiting in 2018, and thought he could start a company of his own. In 2019, he and two other co-founders started work. The original idea was to create a marketplace like Airbnb for people to book these guided safaris. When the company started asking outfitters and tour guides what they thought about the idea, they realized they needed to offer more to get tour guides to sign up. This led them to start building Guidetech, Mallard Bay’s backend solution for outfitters.

“[Outfitters] They bought into the idea and knew that evolving with the times was what they wanted to do, but at the core, clothiers are not business owners first,” Meaux said. “They started out as tour guides, they’re doing what they love and they’re building a passionate business. [With] Not only are we passionate about the outdoors and hunting and fishing, but we’re passionate about the software space and we bring that domain expertise to them and tell them, ‘Hey, if you guys are going to make this transition, we’re the ones for that cause. ‘”

After the company brought hunting influencer Toby Brohlin to the platform, more outfitters started signing up. Brolin’s total bookings have exceeded $1 million, Meux said. In 2023, gross bookings across the platform exceeded $6 million and are expected to reach $30 million to $35 million in 2024.

Meaux said that despite the size of the market and the attractiveness of the company, it was difficult to get investors to sign on — the company spoke to more than 270 investors to raise this round — because investors didn’t understand the category or its potential. The startup also had to combat negative perceptions of safari and ensure potential backers it wasn’t a platform to book exotic safari safaris in Africa. Another key point the founders want to share with investors: When hunting and fishing is done ethically, it actually helps conservation, which is something the company is passionate about.

“One thing that comes with hunting and fishing is becoming a conservationist,” Mocks said. “It just goes with the field because ultimately, when we get guidance from our parents on how to do things, we want our children to be able to do the same thing. Without sustainable practices, sustainable wildlife management, overpopulation overall It will cause damage to wildlife.”

Mallard Bay co-founders (from left): Wyatt Mallett, Logan Meaux, Joel Moreau and Tam Nguyen. Image Source: mallard bay

While I’m not a hunter myself and only dabble in fishing occasionally, the Mallard Bay deal caught my eye because I can’t say I hear about hunting or fishing very often in the startup and tech ecosystem. Hunting SaaS is an interesting concept! It’s not even the only hunting-related company to raise money recently: HLRBO, an online platform that makes it easier to find hunting land leases, raised a $1 million seed round in February.

It’s worth noting that Mallard has also grown very quickly since its launch in 2021. Mallard Bay’s bookings are up 600% year-over-year, which is impressive for any category, but particularly striking in seemingly relatively niche categories like hunting and fishing. As I said before, wealth is in niches – probably because niches are never as small as they initially seem.

Americans spend more than $394 billion on outdoor activities, including hunting and fishing, but also hiking, bird watching, and more, yet many of these industries remain largely offline or rely on low-level, difficult-to-navigate technology. I experienced this last month when I was trying to find parking to hike the very popular Devil’s Bridge Trail in Sedona, Arizona. I had to piece together information from multiple blogs to see if I needed a parking pass.

In addition to Mallard Bay, there are case studies demonstrating customer demand for these outdoor-focused applications. Strava is an app for runners and cyclists with over 100 million users. Apps that connect people who share outdoor activities like fishing also have strong appeal. Fishbrain is a social media app for fishermen that has logged more than 14 million fish catches in its 12-year history.

For his part, Meaux knows how big this could get, and despite the progress they’ve made so far, he believes there’s still a big market to capture and that Guidetech still needs to build more capabilities.

“I would say we’ve had some success, but we’re not there yet,” Meaux said. “That’s something I learned from my father along the way. In his company, even after they quit, they still had work to do.”