Naturenama, a curator of adventure and wildlife travel is a Mumbai based venture which raised seed of $225,000 from venture capital firm White Unicorn Ventures.

The travel tech startup will mainly use funds for technology enhancement, brand building and marketing as the founder Shaunak Modi was found quoting to Techcircle.

The company gained roots this January and would primarily target outdoor travel segment from India. It also plans to manage adventure and wildlife planners and guides. The website is most likely to go live next month.

The founder has previously monitored and co-founded Bytehouse, a tech start-up that focused on developing solutions for wildlife and bio-diversity conservation organisations, and a clothing brand TYGR.

The venture capital firm has so far invested in 15 companies and last month it started working in its first co-working office, called Unicorn Growth Centre, Mumbai.

White Unicorn has four associates and 20 individual investors. It is looking to raise a $20-million fund to invest in early-stage start-ups. The firm plans to invest $5-10 million by this year from institutions rather than from wealthy individuals.

Rohit Chokhani, Principal founder at Unicorn Venture says, “We have raised $5 million from family offices in India and have got a commitment for another $5 million. For the rest $10 million we are considering investors from Russia, Germany, and Silicon Valley and are planning to close the fund by December.”

The segregation would be made on the basis of allocation as half would be used to cater cross-border deal while the remaining would be invested in start-ups in real estate technology, software-as-a-service and Internet of Things in India.

Source: Techcircle

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The budget room aggregator Vista Rooms is planning to raise a whopping amount of $10 million as part of Series A to expand into segments like homestays, hostels and student accommodation.

“Having raised an angel round through HNIs, we are now ready for Series A funding. But the market sentiment is low. We have to wait and watch before we can go in for raising money which is going to be about $ 10 million,” said Ankita Sheth, Co-Founder, Vista Rooms.

The startup is open to experimenting new categories such as resorts, Havelis and service apartments. With 800 rooms to its name, the startup plans to extend its services beyond homestays.

“We have looked into segments like hostels and student accommodation. Hostels are about building communities and are a different business to handle than budget rooms. Even student accommodation is a different market but we have done a pilot in Pune. These are long stays than the typical budget hotels and have to handled differently,’’ added Sheth.

They have been said to be in an engagement with Cox and Kings and Thomas Cook to tap into the corporate market. Which means they would be attracting corporate customers by selling their rooms on these players’ online portal.

“We are into inventory sharing with the offline players since their market is huge. Through their online platform we will access their offline corporate clients,’’ she added.

In the case of Thomas Cook, the company has reached out to its corporates through their B2B platform. However, Vista Rooms has no plans to discount the low-end properties below INR1000 per night through offline travel companies. The average price of their rooms sold through offline portals would be upward of INR2000 and intend to avoid deep discounting as the fellow online players would submerge themselves into to gain consumers.

Given that MakeMyTrip and Goibibo have stemmed from online budget aggregators and the need to tap the offline market is an imperative move.

Source: The Hindu Business Line

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The Travel & Tourism industry has seen a huge surge in the past few years and things have gained even more momentum this year. Innovative startups are coming up in this space and scaling at a rapid pace. We have also witnessed some major acquisitions like TaxiForSure by Ola and Mygola by MakeMyTrip. Local investors that were dormant until now have joined the game to further heat up things in this segment. The investments grew by over 50 percent in the second quarter of the year as compared to the first quarter.

Here is an exclusive infographic by TravHQ which consolidates some travel startup investments that have made the news in 2015. There are some startups in the list who haven’t disclosed the amount, but the experts can predict the range by looking at their categories, funding source and observing similar other investments.

Budget stays

This segment has seen the most action this year and according to industry experts, we will see a lot more activity in budget stays in the coming months. Finding quality budget stays was a major challenge for travellers in India and these startups seem to  be addressing the issue. While most of the inclusions are budget hotel chains like OYO Rooms, Zo Rooms, Treebo Hotels, FabHotels and Wudstay, Stayzilla operates as a platform for individual hotels as well as alternative stays.

Trip Planning

These services help you plan your travel by offering multiple itineraries or tools that can help you create your own. This is another industry segment that might see more players though growth is limited by the high dependence on community and limited monetisation opportunities here. Trip Hobo and Tripoto are two startups that help you discover itineraries of other people and help you plan your own vacations.

In-destination services

These services come in handy when you are travelling or have reached your destination. It isn’t exactly the hottest segment right now but with newer technologies entering the scene, it will gain momentum very soon. Guidoo and Trip38 are two very different startups that wiill help you in your travel. Guidoo allows you to explore destination with audio visual guides and offers the option to book local activities. Trip38 manages the itinerary in one place after you have got the bookings done via a booking service. It also offers the option of booking local activities similar to Guidoo.

Marketplace/ Travel search

Travel marketplaces are still evolving in India and are slowly gaining traction. Portals like Travel Triangle, Trip Factory or iTraveller leverage technology to capture customer preferences and offer a better tailored package for them. Travel search engine ixigo also saw investments this year while they are working to ramp up their services and increase the focus on mobile.

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