Libersy, an Amsterdam-based startup that we first covered in March 2007, closed a €1.2 Million round of financing this week. Investors include Shamrock Ventures, Value Creation & Company, Reof and Technofonds Flevoland. The company had previously raised €400k in a series of angel rounds.
Libersy, along with competitor Genbook, provide an easy, embeddable booking solution for small service providers. It allows small businesses like doctors, dentists, hair salons, plumbers, etc. to take bookings online instead of just over the phone. Libersy takes a small cut of every transaction, and will also launch a services portal to generate new customer leads for participating businesses.
It’s a bottom up approach to a huge potential market. But it could take years to build a decent customer base. Meanwhile, Google or others could jump in and grab significant market share.
In some ways the business model is similar to the massively funded, IPO-track Rearden Commerce from Silicon Valley. However, Rearded is aggregative major services for business travelers under a single portal. They are beginning to spread out to other services as well, and eventually they will converge with services like Libersy.
TIME’s Top 10 Websites for 2007:
1. Lemonade.com
2. AskSunday.com
3. Wink.com
4. TechPresident.com
5. Goodreads.com
6. MenuPages.com
7. DontForgetYourToothbrush.com
8. VolunteerMatch.com
9. Fatsecret.com
10. Indeed.com
@Time’sTop 10, What about BuyTheseSocks.com?
I’m personally surprised searchtheweb.com wasn’t included, given how hot I’ve heard search is these days.
Libersy faces some challenges:
(1) How are they going to convince businesses to use a service that forwards customers to a different business (libersy.com). Libersy should focus on building a widget or something where small websites keep the customers they bring in.
(2) Libersy’s name isn’t marketable. I feel I’m being sold insurance.
There are more problems with the idea
Bookies online!
Sounds good.
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
Nice idea in theory. In practice they have a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Business won’t sign up without customers and visa versa. Could be a good acquisition though for someone with lots of eyeballs already.
Congrats to Libersy, always good to see fellow Dutch start-ups shine!
This type of thing is very useful for small businesses. I have friend who owns a massage therapy business and she uses a service called MyReceptionist.com, which handles books for her via Internet or phone. Also payments and other stuff. They specialize in the massage therapy vertical… and specialization by vertical is important for more than just marketing to the respective demos. I am sure there are other bigger players in this same space, for example the phone answering services which have expanded their offerings to include this exact service. Just do a Yahoo search… there are many. Cheers.
Congratulations to Karin! Great to see European Entrepreneurs with global ambitions…
It is not only about the ideas, it is also about the people behind it. Ms Karin is a very charismatic person, good to see that she makes this step up. Good luck.
Congratulations Karin!! Always good to see we Dutch can and will be successful International. I hope we can be next ;-)!
@Richard I totally agree, Karin is very devoted to what she is doing and I think with that you cover 65% of the product or service as an entrepreneur!
Congratulations Karin! I know how much you’ve been putting into this. Best wishes
Its great to see more businesses focusing on the ‘booking’ market.
You are very right Gino, it is even closer to 85% in our opinion, and that is the reason we invest not only in Libersy, but in Karin and her faboulous team!
Best regards,
Aldebert
(VC&C)
Congratulations Karin and Joost and all team-members. I know how much energy you did put in this project. This project will be successful because you feel responsible for what you started up. It’s a great idea and it will find a place in the digital world. It will give people just more Liberty to make there own appointments in Libersy.