A Manchester-based online car hire company has gone global after raising £534,000 from investors.
Stressfreecarrental.com, which raised investment last November led by DSW Ventures, has launched versions of its website for Spain, France, Portugal, Brazil, Turkey, the Netherlands and Italy.
It is now planning more international expansion with German, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian and Latvian versions of its website expected to launch in the coming weeks.
Following the investment, the brand also announced a series of partnerships, including with travel agency Ramsey World Travel, price comparison site SkyScanner and London Luton Airport.
Angel investor Harry Dixon, former CTO of Rentalcars.com, has also invested in the business.
Stressfreecarrental.com was launched in 2020 by entrepreneurs John Charnack (pictured), David Matthews and Rory Powers, who left their last venture, Inventive IT, a booking platform targeting the airport services market.
As part of the investment, travel industry veteran James Jennings became chairman and Tom Nopek, who had a 30-year career in the car rental industry, was appointed non-executive director.
Founder and CEO John Charnock said: “We have seen significant growth over the past year, which has been accelerated by a successful investment round.
“Since then, we’ve expanded our reach by launching foreign language versions of our website, which means we serve clients across most of Europe and beyond.
“This continues to be a key strategy and we are confident that adding more languages to the site in the coming weeks will help us reach even more customers in more and more territories.
“This, combined with the successful partnerships we have agreed with SkyScanner, London Luton Airport and Ramsey World Travel, have helped us exceed our targets and leave us with excellent opportunities for further growth in the coming months.”
Stressfreecarrental.com is the eighth company to join DSW Ventures’ portfolio, which includes other online consumer brands such as One Utility Bill and ACAI Outdoorwear.
