Wilmington startup Waterplay USA has gotten a $400,000 investment to support its expansion, the company announced Friday.

“Waterplay USA is excited about the opportunity this investment allows. It offers the opportunity to expand our geographical reach and enhance our support of local activity providers,” Will Smith, the company's co-founder and CEO, said in a news release.

In an interview Friday afternoon, Smith said the funds come from a group of North Carolina investors - executives who represent a variety of technology and software firms.

"Most are angel investors," Smith added.

Founded in 2012 by Smith and his brother Walt, Waterplay USA offers vacationers the opportunity to find, research and book water-based vacation activities. The web-based service is partnered with several travel affiliates, including hotels, travel agents and travel websites.

"The original idea came when my brother and I would travel. We could book our hotel, dinner and flight reservations online, but we couldn't book our activities ahead of time online," Will Smith explained. "Statistics show that 40 percent of the time, people have to change their [activity] plans due to the unavailability of activities once they arrive at their destination. If they had gone ahead and reserved, they would be ready to go."

Available activities range from deep-sea fishing to parasailing and paddleboarding. Smith said that Waterplay USA now represents activity providers in 19 states and the Virgin Islands. The investment will enable Waterplay USA to expand geographically, he added.

Many of those activity providers are small mom-and-pop operations and don't have the resources to market themselves online or forge partnerships with complementary travel providers, Will Smith said. He and his brother saw an opportunity to organize a disorganized market and to present a wide variety of vacation activities to travelers.

"We operate within a $27 billion [vacation activities] market, but less than 25 percent of those activities are booked online, while 80 percent of flights and hotels are booked online," Will Smith said.

Since forming their company in 2012, the Smith brothers have partnered with a technology and marketing firm which developed proprietary software for Waterplay USA, designed its platform and its website. Beta testing confirmed the site's functionality; users provided positive feedback.

"For the past couple of years, we've been bootstrapping it for the most part and hitting our benchmarks on the technology, on activity providers and on consumers reserving on the site," Will Smith said. "Investors liked that. They also liked that we can drive traffic to the site. When we ran our beta test, we got great traction from consumers and great feedback."

Will Smith said that Waterplay USA is moving to larger quarters near Hanover Center in midtown, and the $400,000 investment will enable the startup to hire additional staff for marketing and inside sales. Additional expenditures will happen gradually, however, he said, explaining that the brothers expect to maintain a "startup mentality" of conservative spending until revenues really begin to increase substantially.