The Crowded Boat Rental Market – CEO: “someone will die”

A market that has been growing more and more crowded the last years in is the on demand marketplace for boat-rentals.

There is a long history for yacht rentals in southern Spain, and there are hundreds of small companies controlling a small amount of boats.

However, the last years there has been big changes in the sector, and startups as Boatbureau and Nautal has totally changed the game. The latest startup to enter the sector is Yanpy, with thousands of boats on their marketplace.

The CEO and co-founder of Barcelona-based Nautal, Octavio Uyà, explains why he thinks the boat-rental space is so tight right now:

Two of the co-founders of Nautal Octavi and XX at their office at Barcelona Activa

Two of the co-founders of Nautal Octavi and Roger Llovet Hom at their office at Barcelona Activa.

“The big change in the market was when Nautal and other companies started to rent boats for under a period of a week, suddenly you could rent for hours or days. The traditional companies, only offered weekly rentals, and that’s some of the reason we could grow so fast”.

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Someone will die

The new challenger in the market, Yanpy do not fair the competition from it’s more experienced competitors:

“There are so many competitors, but our goal is to be different, fresh, even fun. Our weapons are technology, that helps us create new models, illusion, and tons of business”, says Roberto Cordoba at Yanpy.

Nautal has raised little capital, but has been growing massively the last years. The “oldest” startup, Boatbureau, recently raised around €700.000. Yanpy would not reveal how much money they’ve raised, but expresses that it’s not much.

A lot of hard work being done at Nautal’s offices these final months before the boat season hits Spain

Like the crowded on-demand delivery space, the Nautal CEO Uyà expresses how it’s not room for three (or more) big boat rental platforms in Spain:

“Someone will die the next years, that’s for sure”.

Nautal is now looking for investment going forward, with their latest focus being the US and the Caribbean market, in addition to the European market where they already have a strong presence.

Yanpy however, has another take on the future:

“We hope no one dies. We would like to think we are fresh air. We have the challenge of pushing the yacht charter market to the XXI century”, explains Yanpy’s Cordoba.

The key

CEO Uyà believes the key to success is to cooperate with the existing boat rental industry.

“Our goal is to have the best relationship possible to the existing smaller yacht rental companies.

It's more than enough to do for Nautal's team towards the summer and the startups peak season of the year.

There’s more than enough to do for Nautal’s team towards the summer and the startups peak season of the year.

Nautal for one, had €1 million in sales last years, and hopes to round €3.5 million this year.

Spanish startups working with boat-rentals still mostly represents other rental companies on their platform. As an example, only 30 percent of Nautals clients are private boat owners.

Yanpy explained that the last years have been good for them as well.

“We’re optimistic. After the recession, the market it’s getting better each year. Our numbers are very good so far, but we hope to grow exponentially for years. Our goal is clear: To lead the yacht charter global market“, says Cordoba.