When Jen Clark launched Heartful, the web lodging market for sustainable and inclusive journey, simply over 12 months in the past, the very last thing she predicted as a founder was that AI bot assaults might result in its potential demise.
It wasn’t even an assault on Heartful, which has greater than 550 high-quality property listings nationally. They got here after 47-year-old LGBTIQ+ founder’s funding supply, her design enterprise.
The Ai bot assault, spanning October and November 2025, originating from China and Singapore, overwhelmed the Jen Clark Design web site, regardless of having strong safety measures in place. She’d usually obtain round 20-25 shopper enquiries a month, which constantly generated earnings to fund Heartful’s early operations. They vanished.
“Inside days, our major income stream was gone,” Clark stated.
The Heartful app
“By the point we restored performance, our runway had evaporated. Regardless of my greatest efforts in current days to safe bridge funding or discover an acquisition accomplice, we ran out of time.”
Clark is now in search of an acquisition accomplice or purchaser to proceed or evolve Heartful or she faces the heartbreaking resolution of closing it subsequent week, simply earlier than Christmas.
“Heartful had the group, know-how, market validation, and readability of imaginative and prescient to succeed,” she stated.
“What we didn’t have was entry to the capital that may have allowed us to climate an surprising disaster. This enterprise might have been – and nonetheless could possibly be – an infinite success with the suitable backing.”
Clark launched her startup in October 2024. She additionally hosts the Hosting with Heart podcast about short-term lodging internet hosting, and lives in Woodend in Victoria’s Macedon Ranges, about an hour north-west of Melbourne.
She was a finalist within the 2025 Australian Ladies in Journey Awards ‘Rising Star’ class and jokes that she represents a number of underrepresented cohorts within the startup sector, having been recognized as autistic with ADHD just a few years in the past. Her household are additionally neurodivergent.
So she’s conscious of how powerful it’s for ladies founders.
“Projected figures for 2025 counsel funding for female-founded startups in Australia might fall under 0.5%, the bottom stage on document,” Clark stated.
“Solo feminine founders constructing goal pushed firms are even much less prone to obtain funding.”
A booming market
Heartful raised some capital through fairness crowdfunding and has greater than 130 shareholders, and he or she hopes that somebody can see the chance they’ve invested in.
“We’ve solved the toughest issues: constructing enterprise-grade know-how, reaching product-market match on one facet of {the marketplace}, validating the enterprise mannequin, and creating real neighborhood engagement,” stated Clark.
“For the suitable acquirer, this represents an distinctive alternative to enter the moral journey market with a ready-made, validated platform and passionate neighborhood already in place.”
Heartful caters to Australia’s two fastest-growing tourism sectors: accessible tourism (value $29.2 billion in 2024) and sustainable tourism, with a specific deal with regional communities and Indigenous heritage.
“Accessible and sustainable tourism aren’t area of interest segments – they’re the way forward for journey,” stated Clark.
“Astute, clever customers deserve platforms constructed with real understanding and dedication. That’s what Heartful presents.”
The platform has aggressive fee construction whereas committing 1% of reserving proceeds to Properties for Properties Australia for inexpensive and social housing tasks.
Jen Clark hopes she doesn’t need to make the painful resolution to close down Heartful as she rebuilds her 15-year-old design apply.
“This closure doesn’t in any method diminish what we’ve constructed collectively. I really hope the suitable accomplice will carry this torch ahead,” she stated.
If you wish to get in contact, e mail her at jen[at]heartful.travel, or go to Heartful.com.au.
The Heartful web site
