When Jen Clark launched Heartful, the online accommodation marketplace for sustainable and inclusive travel, just over 12 months ago, the last thing she predicted as a founder was that AI bot attacks could lead to its potential demise.
It wasn’t even an attack on Heartful, which has more than 550 high-quality property listings nationally. They came after 47-year-old LGBTIQ+ founder’s funding source, her design business.
The Ai bot attack, spanning October and November 2025, originating from China and Singapore, overwhelmed the Jen Clark Design website, despite having robust security measures in place. She’d normally receive around 20-25 client enquiries a month, which consistently generated income to fund Heartful’s early operations. They vanished.
“Within days, our primary revenue stream was gone,” Clark said.
The Heartful app
“By the time we restored functionality, our runway had evaporated. Despite my best efforts in recent days to secure bridge funding or find an acquisition partner, we ran out of time.”
Clark is now seeking an acquisition partner or buyer to continue or evolve Heartful or she faces the heartbreaking decision of closing it next week, just before Christmas.
“Heartful had the team, technology, market validation, and clarity of vision to succeed,” she said.
“What we didn’t have was access to the capital that would have allowed us to weather an unexpected crisis. This business could have been – and still could be – an enormous success with the right backing.”
Clark launched her startup in October 2024. She also hosts the Hosting with Heart podcast about short-term accommodation hosting, and lives in Woodend in Victoria’s Macedon Ranges, about an hour north-west of Melbourne.
She was a finalist in the 2025 Australian Women in Travel Awards ‘Rising Star’ category and jokes that she represents multiple underrepresented cohorts in the startup sector, having been diagnosed as autistic with ADHD a few years ago. Her family are also neurodivergent.
So she’s aware of how tough it is for women founders.
“Projected figures for 2025 suggest funding for female-founded startups in Australia could fall below 0.5%, the lowest level on record,” Clark said.
“Solo female founders building purpose driven companies are even less likely to receive investment.”
A booming market
Heartful raised some capital via equity crowdfunding and has more than 130 shareholders, and she hopes that someone can see the opportunity they’ve invested in.
“We’ve solved the hardest problems: building enterprise-grade technology, achieving product-market fit on one side of the marketplace, validating the business model, and creating genuine community engagement,” said Clark.
“For the right acquirer, this represents an exceptional opportunity to enter the ethical travel market with a ready-made, validated platform and passionate community already in place.”
Heartful caters to Australia’s two fastest-growing tourism sectors: accessible tourism (worth $29.2 billion in 2024) and sustainable tourism, with a particular focus on regional communities and Indigenous heritage.
“Accessible and sustainable tourism aren’t niche segments – they’re the future of travel,” said Clark.
“Astute, intelligent consumers deserve platforms built with genuine understanding and commitment. That’s what Heartful offers.”
The platform has competitive commission structure while committing 1% of booking proceeds to Homes for Homes Australia for affordable and social housing projects.
Jen Clark hopes she doesn’t have to make the painful decision to shut down Heartful as she rebuilds her 15-year-old design practice.
“This closure doesn’t in any way diminish what we’ve built together. I truly hope the right partner will carry this torch forward,” she said.
If you want to get in touch, email her at jen[at]heartful.travel, or visit Heartful.com.au.
The Heartful site
