An online hotel booking company that offers booking hotels by the pack of hours, MiStay has raised an undisclosed amount of investment through investment firm ah! Ventures and a group of investors led by Hyderabad based ex-entrepreneur, Sumit Nagpal. MiStay will utilize the fund to grow the leadership team and also to build up the brand. Founded in 2016 by alumni of IIT Madras, Sandeep Jaiswal & Pranav Prabhakar, MiStay had previously raised the first round of seed investment in late 2017.

Later, the company pivoted from the initial focus on the B2B corporate market to the consumer market in mid-2018. Since then,
MiStay has grown 5 times and hit operational profitability in June this year. “Travelers today no longer want to plan their trip based on the hotels’ check-in time. The hotel industry is poised to transform to meet these evolving travelers’ needs. This transition, however, requires disrupting the age-old technological ecosystem in hotel industry and raising operational capabilities of hotels. We are building the entire ecosystem ground up to enable the flexible hotel stay and be the leader in this market”, said Sandeep Jaiswal, the Co-Founder & CEO at MiStay. The average hotel occupancy rate in India stands at around 65%, thus the unsold hotel rooms constitute around 6 Billion Dollars of missed revenue opportunity for hotels. MiStay creates a new demand of customers who require hotels with early check-in, short-stay or day-use rooms which hotels can tap into to maximize their occupancy and revenue.

“The micro-stay model brings a unique revenue optimization opportunity for the hotels. Our product helps hotels realize their full revenue potential by unlocking the value in hotel inventory during the hours it remains unutilized. Hotels can in fact run at more than 100% occupancy”, said Pranav Prabhakar, the Co-Founder & CTO at MiStay.

MiStay is currently operational in 100 cities with around 1500 hotel partners. Unlike other counterparts who focus on couple-friendly hotels, MiStay sees business travelers or travelers having long layover as the primary target audience. The partner hotels of MiStay include many premium hotel brands such as The Park, Radisson, Holiday Inn as well as mid-scale hotel chains such as Lemon Tree, Mango Hotels, Mint Hotels, 1589 Hotels, Treebo, and others.

“Currently we have divided a full-day into 3 smaller slots of a few hours which costs as low as around 30% of the full-day tariff. We are working closely with the hotels and aim to bring even more flexibility to travelers. Obsession with customer experience has been and will remain the guiding principle for our every move”, added Nupur Singh, who leads customer success at MiStay.
Abhijeet Kumar, Founding Partner at ah! Ventures said “Hotel booking is a very large market and the unique approach of MiStay for inventory optimization will change the way hotel industry operates.

The post Hourly hotel booking company MiStay raises funding from ah! Ventures & others appeared first on TravHQ.

As we wind up 2018, here’s a look back at Indian travel startups that stole the limelight and attracted the attention of investors. While OYO has been the behemoth leading the funding round with focus towards overseas expansion, many other travel startups were in news for multiple fund injections.

Want to catch-up with the latest in travel tech? The Travel Technology Track is an annual initiative by TravHQ & OTM to build a knowledge sharing platform and showcase innovative cutting-edge technologies in the travel industry. Hosted in Mumbai in-line with OTM, the event aims to bring the thought-leaders and key decision makers of the travel industry under one roof to share best practices through insightful sessions and workshops. To participate click here.

The post Travel Startup Funding in India: 2018 Year in Review appeared first on TravHQ.

Sojern, the travel tech company known for its traveler path-to-purchase data and innovative travel marketing and distribution solutions, today announced that growth equity firm TCV has led a $120 million financing round in Sojern.

Sojern looks to build on its years of rapid growth and successful execution—recently marking 13 consecutive quarters of profitability—to accelerate solutions development for its clients, which include 93 percent of the world’s Fortune 500 travel companies and thousands of independent hotel properties and local tourism providers. As part of the transaction, TCV general partner Woody Marshall joined Sojern’s Board of Directors. TCV brings extensive experience in the travel and marketing tech spaces with investments in Airbnb, Expedia, HomeAway, TripAdvisor, SiteMinder, ExactTarget, Act-On and Ariba.

Sojern offers a scalable model for driving bookings through a blend of programmatic display, video, social, mobile and native advertising tailored to reach travel audiences as they move through the process of planning and researching an upcoming trip. The company has closely followed trends in travel marketing, acquiring Facebook and Instagram Marketing Partner Adphorus in late 2017, testing into connected TV, and making its real-time audiences available to top clients via a programmatic in-house offering.

“At Sojern, we aim to know all the world’s travelers and move them from dream to destination. Our teams dig deep into the traveler path-to-purchase so we can help our clients win the competition for bookings. We’ve used those insights to drive $13 billion in bookings so far, with the goal of transforming digital marketing into digital distribution,” said Sojern CEO Mark Rabe. “With this new partnership with TCV, we’re excited to continue driving efficiency into the ~$100 billion being spent by travel brands around the world.”

Woody Marshall said, “We have been watching Sojern’s rapid rise in the travel technology space for several years, and we were impressed with Sojern’s leadership position in the space and its unique, scalable model for influencing travelers worldwide. Sojern’s ability to both conceptualize a better marketing experience for travel organizations and their steady execution over the past decade, as well as their innovative business strategy, strong executive team, and inspiring company culture made them a natural fit for us.”

The post Travel Tech Company Sojern Announces Financing Round Led By TCV appeared first on TravHQ.

MakeMyTrip has invested an undisclosed amount in Bengaluru-based Bitla Software.

Bitla Software is a travel-focused technology provider with SaaS, cloud and mobile-based solutions to help customers expand their businesses.

The company’s technologies are widely used domestically and internationally by bus operators, bus GDSs, online ticketing portals, hoteliers, holiday tour operators and cargo and logistics companies.

It will use the latest fundraise to rapidly develop and expand its suite of travel focused technology products, said Dasharatham Bitla, Founder & CEO, Bitla Software.

“We look to foster faster innovations in order to accelerate growth in these travel segments. Our latest investment in Bitla Software is aimed at providing an extensive suite of technology products and solutions for the bus and hotel supplier ecosystem which will further strengthen our market position,” said Deep Kalra, chairman of MMT.

MMT Chairman Deep Kalra. Image source: Moneycontrol

This is firm’s sixth investment in the tech space. MMT’s bus ticketing business has witnessed a strong momentum, with a jump of 55 percent year-on-year in the fourth quarter. Post its merger with Ibibo, the MakeMyTrip group, which is listed on Nasdaq, has been spending significantly on customer inducement and acquisition.

The post MakeMyTrip invests in travel tech company Bitla Software appeared first on TravHQ.

TourRadar, the online travel agency (OTA) that targets the multi-day touring market, has raised $50 million in Series C funding. The Vienna, Austria-headquartered company, which also has offices in Brisbane and Toronto, was founded in 2009.

Consisting mostly of primary funding, the round is led by the Silicon Valley growth VC firm TCV, with participation from existing investors Cherry Ventures, Endeit Capital, Hoxton Ventures, and Speedinvest. TCV has previously backed Expedia and Airbnb, and has a decent track record in the travel space.

Erik Blachford, a venture partner at TCV and already an angel investor in TourRadar, has joined the company’s supervisory board. Blachford was previously President and CEO of IAC Travel, managing all of IAC’s travel assets including Expedia and Hotels.com.

More than 600 operators, such as G Adventures, Contiki, Collette, Intrepid Travel, Topdeck Travel, Trafalgar, and Uniworld, sell more than 25,000 tours via TourRadar. The company intends to hire employees and invest in its technology.

Last year in October, the company had secured $10 million in Series B, which it had used to double its headcount, mainly in its tech and product department across all offices in Vienna, Brisbane and Toronto.

TourRadar was one of the first online marketplace for the touring industry and aims to offer travellers the easiest way of booking multi-day tours at the click of a button. The company believes the addressable market for multiday tours is about $55 billion worldwide.

The post TourRadar raises $50 million in Series C to drive expansion appeared first on TravHQ.

Online holiday-packages marketplace Tripshelf has raised fresh funding of INR 1.6 crore from a group of professional investors, including GEMS Advisory (a micro VC); Alok Mittal of Indifi; Sachin Bhatia, Co-Founder of MakeMyTrip and Truly Madly; Anita Gupta, Global Equity Strategist; Singapore Angel Network; and Alka Puri, IIM-C Alumnus & Founder of Roads Ahead Consult; amongst other HNIs. This is a continuation of Tripshelf’s pre-series A Funding Round received from GEMS Advisory in mid-2016; the total amount raised by the startup now stands at INR 3.2 crore.

The latest round of funds will be used to deepen pillars of its business operations and establish a long- term asset vs. hyper growth capital. Within two years of its inception, Tripshelf has achieved an annual Gross Transaction Value (GTV) of INR 36 crore, and an annual revenue run rate of INR 1.5 crore. With the current funding, the startup aims to touch a revenue run rate of INR 3 crore annually, and a GTV of around INR 50 crore.

The team at Tripshelf

Speaking on the occasion, Dhruv Raj Gupta, Co-Founder, Tripshelf, said, “This is the second time we have raised funds in Pre-Series A round; it is a testimony to the immense faith several investors have shown in our start-up. The earlier funds we raised in 2016 were being used to establish unit economics’ profitability, and setup the talent pool. This time, with the fresh capital, we look forward to onboarding more tour operators in our platform, improve overall consumer experience, and also increase the products listed on the site, thereby helping our consumers with a comprehensive search experience.”

Sukhmani Singh, Co-Founder, Tripshelf, added, “As an aggregation-based start-up, we need to keep on driving value at both buyer and seller sides. Our current financing model allows us to test our hypothesis without the pressure of unmanaged growth, which many hyper-consumer startups have fallen prey to. By working with us, our tour operators have recently seen an increase in conversion rates, adopted technologies that enable better team management, and created a strong online brand. We put our foot where our mouth is and help SMBs with capital loans too.”

Tour operators can list their holiday packages on Tripshelf and travellers can discover, compare, and buy these packages from them. The company specialises in curating high-quality tour operators on the platform and providing a combination of budget and luxury holiday packages to popular destinations. The platform lets customers compare data listed on the online marketplace and once selected, the customer is directed to the supplier’s website for bookings.

Tripshelf’s USP is the machine learning tools adopted to make it easier and faster for tour operators to focus on the customers who are going to convert. The company markets their packages, provides them with high-quality leads, and through a single-window, real-time CRM, helps them manage those leads better. From customer data and call logs, to conversion predictability score and custom templates for quotes, Tripshelf’s suite of tools keeps operators ahead of the curve. Additionally, tour operators can also use the portal for launches and promotions.

Aditya Gupta, Managing Partner, GEMS Group, said, “Taking tour operators online is the new opportunity in the travel industry; it is a frontier that has neither been explored nor exploited. TripShelf, with their hybrid offering of both technology and potential customers for tour operators, is well-placed to become a leader in this vertical of the travel industry. We are excited about what the TripShelf team has already achieved since our last investment, and look forward to sustained growth in the months and years ahead.”

According to Bhatia, “I have known Sukhmani and Dhruv for a bit now and like the tenacity with which they approach any problem and create an opportunity out of it. This is a highly fragmented market and needs a mix of tech and good old operational skills to solve. This team has it in them to deliver on both.”

Currently, the website of Tripshelf promotes more than 750 tour operators and over 3,000 holiday packages, and can be deemed larger than its nearest competitors.

The post Online travel marketplace Tripshelf raises fresh funding of INR 1.6 crore appeared first on TravHQ.

Online travel marketplace TravelTriangle has raised a $12 million Series C round led by Fundamentum.

The startup operates like a travel booking platform to allow holidaymakers to choose and secure their travel plans online. It also works with offline travel agents to help them offer services, such as tailoring a trip, to customers as they do when they walk into their offices in person. The company also offers a suite of back-office services designed for agencies to help bring them on to its platform and generate additional revenue.

The deal also marks the first investment from Fundamentum, a new $100 million fund established by Nandan Nilekani, one of the co-founders and former CEO of $33 billion IT services giant Infosys, and Helion Ventures partner Sanjeev Aggarwal.

Existing investors SAIF Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, RB investments and some angel investors also participated in the company’s Series C round.
In an interview to Economic Times, Nilekani said that Fundamentum evaluated more than 50 companies before deciding to back TravelTriangle, citing both the business opportunity in this segment as well as the team’s focus on frugality and unit economics.

“The Indian economy is going to become $6 trillion in ten years and there will be a huge middle class with spending power. The holiday travel market is going to grow very big,” Nilekani said.

“TravelTriangle has a unique approach of working with travel agents in a B2B2C model, which is not easy to replicate. What we also liked was the team is humble, open-minded and have a long-term vision,” he added. Ashish Kumar, partner at Fundamentum will join the TravelTriangle board.

Sankalp Agarwal, TravelTriangle’s CEO and one of three co-founders behind the business, mentioned that the money will be spent on product R&D, expanding to newer destinations as well as increasing brand visibility through marketing.

TravelTriangle closed a $10 million Series B in February 2017, and since then has seen its site traffic jump significantly from two million to 2.5 million per month. The startup has aggregated nearly 700 travel agents on its platform and services and services 60,000 customers for both international and domestic destinations.

The post TravelTriangle raises $12 million Series C round led by Nandan Nilekani’s Fundamentum appeared first on TravHQ.

San Francisco, CA-based global WiFi provider Skyroam recently closed a $20 million Series C funding, bringing its total funding to over $50 million, and proving wrong naysayers, who think the device is unnecessary.

The round was led by Jafco Asia with participation from returning investors Vickers Venture, GSR Ventures, China Broadband Capital, as well as Delta Electronics Capital. The company intends to use the funds to accelerate global deployment of its smart data platform, to strengthen its products, expand the engineering and research team, enhance the end-to-end service platform, and accelerate growth into more vertical markets across the world.

Skyroam keeps travellers connected around the world through mobile hotspots powered by its virtual SIM (vSIM) technology. It delivers on-demand local wireless data through local carrier partnerships around the world. Its global hotspots, embedded with a vSIM, enable unlimited mobile WiFi in 120+ countries. Skyroam’s vSIM technology also provides global mobile data access to IoT, M2M, and wearables applications.

While switching to a local carrier might appear to be an attractive proposition to someone travelling once a year, Skyroam presents a very strong case for frequent travellers journeying to different countries. For instance, on roaming rates, carriers negotiate with each other but customers ultimately don’t benefit from competitive pricing, and are usually stuck with slow speeds.

This is where Skyroam’s virtual SIM technology steps in. It lets people use existing physical SIMs that is then virtualized, and can deliver mobile services to a wireless device, and change carriers on the device as needed, with Skyroam as the trusted third party. By using Skyroam, not only can travellers avoid a telecom company’s extra charges and bandwidth usage limits, but also connect up to five devices at a time. The company also recently announced a new Monthly Unlimited Global WiFi Subscription, available for use around the world for an affordable price of $99/month.

Travel has changed significantly over the last few years. One of those areas is the proliferation of mobile-first applications that make it easy to book and find information on-the-go. Travellers are increasingly taking control of their travel needs, no longer bound by the limitations of connectivity. In the future, travellers will expect even more seamlessness, and the growth of Skyroam will make it easy for people to align their dynamic mobile connectivity needs to their travel requirements, thus, solving a big pain point for frequent travellers.

The post The latest Skyroam funding bodes well for the future of travel connectivity appeared first on TravHQ.

Budget hotel startup RedDoorz has closed $11 million in new funding to expand its network of budget hotels and guest houses throughout the Southeast Asian region.

The round is described as being pre-Series B and it comes from existing investors Sushquehanna International Group (SIG), World Bank’s IFC, InnoVen Capital and Jungle Ventures, with new investors DeepSky Capital, FengHe Group and Hendale Capital joining.The cash will let the company expand operations into new cities and new countries, including Thailand, where there are plenty of young travellers looking for budget hotel rooms

The company, led by CEO Amit Saberwal, brings together budget hotel owners under the RedDoorz banner and books their rooms via an online marketplace. Through the site, hotel owners get access to guests, and travellers can rest assured that RedDoorz-branded hotel rooms have clean sheets, decent internet, and trained staff. This concept was initially pioneered by India’s OYO, which is backed by SoftBank’s Vision Fund, but RedDoorz is one of half a dozen or so venture-backed efforts bringing the model to Southeast Asia.

Image source: cnbc.com

The company launched in Indonesia, before using earlier funding rounds to expand to the Philippines and Singapore, where the company just leased its own hotel to run. The company had closed a $5 million Series A at the end of 2016. Initially, it closed a $1.4 million seed round and it added $1 million in venture debt last year.

As it stands in Indonesia, where RedDoorz has been the longest and where it has most of its 500 properties — it claims to offer 3,000 rooms across 16 cities — the vast majority of customers are local and using the company’s Android app, rather than the tourist crowd. That crowd is roughly split between those on business and on leisure.

The Southeast Asian budget hotel market is currently worth between US$15 million to US$20 million, according to reporting by The Edge Markets in 2017. The real beneficiaries of this market are booking platforms that redirect tourists to budget hotels that offer the best deals. Most booking platforms in the region employ a standardised model, aggregating available rooms in hotels within a certain city and forming a network of available rooms across multiple cities. Some booking platforms are trying to creatively improvise their services by innovating around evolving customer needs, such as speed of booking, that RedDoorz particularly focuses on. The RedDoorz website is optimised to ensure that the booking form is displayed prominently on the landing page, which keeps guests focused on completing their booking.

The post RedDoorz just received an $11 million funding boost to expand its footprint appeared first on TravHQ.

From globalization of organizations, to surging income levels and drastic transformation in the way government authorities have enhanced regulatory support, business travel has gradually emerged as one of India’s fastest growing industries in recent years.

According to a recent report by consultancy KPMG and FCM Travel Solutions, India is now the world’s tenth largest business travel market and is likely to clock the fastest growth in this segment in the next five years. Business travel spending is also expected to treble until 2030 from $30 billion in 2015, the report states.

With this massive upsurge in the corporate travel market, a host of B2B travel startups are at the fore of keeping up with requirements of consumers through updated technology, availability of services and the latest in infrastructure. Bengaluru-based travel management startup, Itilite Technologies, is striving to provide business travellers with seamless booking experiences, and also creating memorable journeys in the process.

Image source: Allianz Travel

Itilite is a business-to-business Travel SaaS provider with end-to-end corporate travel management solution that promises to reduce cost by rewarding employees for saving on travel.

A lot of companies struggle with meeting employee expectations on business travel, coupled with prevention of a major escalation in travel costs. Here, Itilite’s approach rewards employees for travel savings, making them the biggest ambassadors of travel cost reduction. The platform provides better pre-travel booking experience using its dynamic travel policy integration, self-learning algorithms for trip planning, analytics dashboards for CFOs, personalized booking options that include multi-stop trips, and access to off-market rates. Post the trip, travellers are also provided with insights into their travel data and access to help them improve their travel program.

According to the company, this approach has helped Itilite’s customers lower travel cost by 30 per cent, while making employees happier.

Earlier this month, Itilite raised a seed round from Matrix Partners and some angel investors. While the size of the investment was not disclosed, the company plans to use the funds to expand sales operations.

The post Travel startup Itilite is making business itineraries lighter appeared first on TravHQ.