INVESTMENT YEAR
2016
SECTOR
Consumer
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Online ferry ticket aggregator

Direct Ferries is the world’s largest online ferry ticket aggregator. Founded in 1999, it sells ferry tickets on behalf of companies like P&O Ferries, Stena Line and Brittany Ferries.

Our investment is helping Direct Ferries grow its network of ferry companies and invest in its global ticket distribution capability. We’re also looking at international expansion with the Asian and US markets earmarked as potential future growth areas.

As part of the transaction, Beauport Partners, led by Greg Wills, will also be investing and providing strategic support to the Direct Ferries management team. Wills was the co-founder and CEO of Rentalcars.com (originally named TravelJigsaw) which is now part of the Priceline Inc Group. Livingbridge invested in TravelJigsaw between 2008 and 2010 and are delighted that Direct Ferries will now be able to benefit from the world class e-commerce expertise of Wills and his colleagues in Beauport.

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From the start of our journey
60
full-time employees
to the company today
120
full-time employees
Building the best
Significant investment in technology and headcount to rapidly scale the business

The right tools for growth

Customer acquisition & retention
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We worked with the business to implement scalable PPC campaigns and introduced automation in marketing to increase efficiency and provide greater bandwidth to the team.

Talent
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We have invested heavily in building out a market leading team who can capitalise on the opportunity available to Direct Ferries

Data & insight
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Our growth acceleration team worked alongside the business to build out picture of customer lifetime value and repeat rate. The analysis surfaced opportunities to improve customer engagement post purchase and drive repeat buyers through lower cost acquisition channels.