Lake.com, a discovery platform for lakeside vacation rentals, has raised $2.6 million in a pre-seed round.

The investment in the Toronto-based company was led by the Business Development Bank of Canada and supported by angel investors.

Lake.com is betting that travel bookings will be made by artificial intelligence (AI) agents in the future. The company, which was founded in 2023, said it is optimized for the main AI platforms from Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Perplexity.

In an email to PhocusWire, founder and CEO David Ciccarelli said the company has 40,000 properties live and is targeting 100,000 bookings within two years.

“On the surface, it looks like we’re building a vacation rental platform for properties by the water. While that’s true, below the surface, we’re creating a new category called the AI travel agency, one that better meets the needs of the family traveler, as well as creating the future of online bookings, made autonomously by AI agents,” he said.

The startup has spent recent months integrating with property management systems including Hostfully, Hostaway, Lodgify, OwnerRez and Uplisting. It now plans to invest in B2C marketing.