The private equity arm of Standard Chartered Bank, ‘Standard Chartered Private Equity’ (SCPE) has agreed to acquire Naspers’ stake in TBO Group (TBO), a leading online B2B travel distribution company in India. Naspers first invested in TBO in 2012. The terms of the agreement have not been disclosed.

TBO (also known as Travel Boutique Online, headquartered in India) was founded in 2006 and has since expanded its operations to more than 90 countries. TBO leverages its proprietary online technology platform to distribute airline and hotel inventory to its customer travel agents.

TBO co-founders Ankush Nijhawan & Gaurav Bhatnagar. Image source: Travel Span

SCPE is committed to backing best-in-class management teams, and continues to actively seek opportunities in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Udai Dhawan, Managing Director at SCPE India, stated, “We are extremely excited to partner with Ankush and Gaurav, both first class entrepreneurs, who have built a profitable and scalable business with a strong market position. We look forward to supporting the company by leveraging our experience and network to drive the Company’s growth strategy.”

Ankush Nijhawan, Co-founder, TBO Group, said, “We are very happy to have SCPE as our partner as we embark on the next stage of TBO’s growth. Through leveraging SCPE’s extensive network and business planning expertise, we would be able to strengthen our position as a leading B2B travel distribution player in the global landscape.”

Gaurav Bhatnagar, Co-founder, TBO Group, said, “The overall B2B travel distribution landscape is ripe for consolidation and we believe that in partnership with SCPE, we can leverage our strengths in technology and scale to drive this consolidation.”

“Naspers first invested in TBO Group six years ago and it’s rewarding to see how the business has grown and advanced in that time,” said Oliver Rippel, CEO B2C ecommerce, Naspers. “We wish Ankush, Gaurav and the team at TBO Group continued success.”

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Deyor Camps, the startup aggregating and organising camping activities, has announced raising a pre-series A round led by Venture Catalysts. Existing investor Dheeraj Jain, who has been actively involved in the strategic growth of the company since it started its operations in January 2016, also participated in the round, which also saw participation from other prominent investors such as Dr. Ritesh Malik and Japanese VC firm REAPRA Ventures. 

Founded by Chirag Gupta, Aakaar Gandhi, Himashu Aggarwal, and Gautam Yadav, Deyor Camps has an active inventory of over 600 verified camps and close to 1000 activity vendors spread across 70 locations. In our previous conversation with Deyor Camps co-founder Chirag Gupta, he shared that in order to deliver on customer trust, the team went manually scouting for right vendors for the initial six months before turning focus towards distribution.

Ankush Nijhawan, Co-founder, TBO Group said, “We are glad to be part of the journey of Deyor Camps which we believe will compliment TBO travel portfolio and distribute adventure travel to our large travel agent network.”

At the seed stage, Deyor Camps received investment from ibibo group company Travel Boutique Online (TBO) soon after the launch. TBO has a network of over 20,000 travel agents which is accessible to Deyor Camps as part of the partnership.

Speaking on the investment, Dr. Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder & President, Venture Catalysts, said, “As India’s first and only chain of branded adventure camps and accessories, Deyor Camps has addressed the most painful challenges on the supply side by creating a robust distribution channel as well as through strong OTA integrations and networking. It also has a very strong and focussed founding, and is well positioned to take advantage of the exponential growth in the demand for adventure travel as a category leader. Having invested in this high-potential venture, we will now be eagerly tracking its market growth and supporting its operations with our specialised start-up focussed services. We will also be looking to invest in more promising start-ups going forward, as we set about achieving our vision of establishing India as the start-up capital of the world.”

Venture Catalyst has previously been involved in early stage investments across e-tailing and SaaS startups.

Chirag Gupta, Co-founder & CEO, Deyor Camps, commented, “The latest investment gives us the resources to expand quickly and strategically into new locations, innovate rapidly, and deliver on our vision to organize the fragmented adventure travel sector in India. With such illustrious investors on board, we are confident of achieving greater growth and scale in the days to come. We have diluted 5% of our equity to raise investment in this round.”

The team at Deyor Camps

Vikram Bharati, Head of Investments at REAPRA Ventures, added, “The team at Deyor Camps is bold in its vision and passionate about what it does. It is creating and fostering a new industry. We believe that when you take a bunch of young and smart individuals who are passionate about a cause and who don’t care about traditional norms, magic can be created. Deyor Camps envisions inspiring young people to travel and experience the depth and breadth of India through camping. We think this is an admirable vision and we see this being backed up with a solid business model. REAPRA is keen to support a team with a vision and plan like this.”

With this investment, Deyor Camps is looking to ramp up the marketing activities, expand the team and strengthen technology integration. You can read more about Deyor Camps here.

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Naspers backed B2B travel portal Travel Boutique Online (TBO) has partnered with Fxkart.com to enable the agents of TBO to easily book foreign exchange seamlessly. Fxkart.com is a marketplace of foreign exchange dealers that allows for travellers to book forex easily. With multiple forex dealers competing against each other, travellers get the best deals without any hassles. TBO has 19,000 travel agents on the platform and they will be able to gain from this partnership.

Mr. Ankush Nijhawan, Co-Founder, TBO Group said, “Fxkart.com is one of the most promising startups in the fin-tech sector. With foreign exchange being one of the biggest pain points for the travel agent, this would be a shot in the arm to seamlessly book forex on the portal and servicing the customer at the lowest rates.”

Despite the increase in size of online travel market in India, the offline players continue to hold a strong share of the huge market. This offline market is driven by travel agents and platforms like TBO allow them to offer competitive prices to the travellers. With this partnership in place, the job of these travel agents will be simplified resulting in better experience for their customers.

On this occasion, Mr. Abdul Hadi Shaikh, CEO Fxkart.com said, “We are happy to be on the platform as it gives us an instant reach to service travel agents who trust TBO across India with the help of technology.”

Fxkart was the winner of our very first Travel Startup Knockdown hosted in association with OTM Mumbai. Startup Knockdown is back, this time with lot more opportunities for the participants. Find more details at startupknockdown.travhq.com.

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