Sēkr raised $2.25M to drag campsite bookings out of the era of phone calls and paper

A mobile app for campers and outdoor travelers: search campsites across the US, filter by amenities, book stays, and connect with a travel community.

$2.25M seed led by Storyteller Overland, with Backstage Capital, Techstars, Ad Astra Ventures, Crescent Ridge Ventures and GoFundMe co-founder Andy Ballester.

Van-lifers Breanne Acio, then a San Diego State professor, and Jess Shisler, in PR, met through social media where both were micro-influencers. Trip planning was their top pain: 15 apps, most built on stale government databases, no way to find showers, water, Wi-Fi or safe overnight parking.

They launched The Vanlife App in March 2018 as a niche community, then rebranded to Sēkr to cover all camping, not just van life. Listings combine public data with crowdsourced corrections; ambassadors and members scout locations, verify information and take photos. Bookings take a 5% guest and 5% owner fee.

The founders are their own users: years of van life gave them the pain, the community credibility and the influencer audience before the first line of code.

Crowdsourcing plus paid ambassadors solves the cold-start problem of digitizing thousands of scattered campgrounds without a door-to-door salesforce.

A strategic lead investor — the van maker Storyteller Overland — bets on the same customer it sells to, aligning the round with distribution.

When an industry's inventory is trapped in phone calls and paper, the wedge is community-generated data: the users who need accurate listings will build them for you, and the booking layer follows.

As of the February 9, 2022 seed announcement, Sēkr was adding reservable inventory directly in-app and planning partnerships to bring more campgrounds online; the material records no later outcome.