Secret Escapes Raises $67 Million: Travel Startup Funding This Week

The total funding publicized this week was more than $98 million. >>Secret Escapes, a flash-sales site for luxury vacation deals, raised $67 million (£52 million). Old Mutual Global Investors provided the investment. It was only last October that Secret Escapes had a Series D and debt facility round of investment, led by Temasek, for $111 million. Since its founding in 2009, Secret Escapes has secured $153 million in capital. Secret Escapes claims to be profitable, has 50 million members of its free-to-join website, and that its revenue has grown at a compound 185 percent a year rate. It had told the Financial Times it had revenue of about $54 million in 2015 on gross bookings without tax of $225 million. But it hasn't broken out numbers since. Secret Escapes has about 850 workers across eight offices, with more than 250 employees in London alone. The startup's success suggests that there is life in the members-only flash-sale concept — an idea that had a heyday in the U.S. during the financial crisis with companies like