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.

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Metasearch sites have been disrupting the hotel distribution landscape for a long time now. By creating an attractive third avenue for hotels to market themselves, it has presented a hopeful medium between direct bookings and the OTAs. And as travellers demand quick and easy access to accurate comparison data, the use of metasearch is also rising.

However, metasearch now have the capacity to not just add value to consumers, but also to suppliers, when they are tasked with comparing more than just prices of hotels and airfares. This is where startups like TripShelf step in.

TripShelf is an online holidays packages marketplace that helps tour operators grow and manage their business. Founded by Dhruv Raj Gupta, Sukhmani Singh and Jai Raj Gupta in the year 2016, the New Delhi-based company helps builds brands, market packages, and drive high quality leads. While Dhruv Raj Gupta’s past work experience includes a stint at Google, Sukhmani Singh is ex-AT Kearney and Jai Raj Gupta has founded a successful venture Shaadionline in the past.

The TripShelf team at the recently concluded OTM Mumbai

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.

The company claims to have more than 500 tour operators on its platform, selling more than 1700 holiday packages. In December 2016, TripShelf raised INR 1.6 crore in pre-Series A round of funding, from GEMS Advisory and venture capital fund Quarizon.

The post Travel marketplace TripShelf is helping businesses capture larger consumer experiences appeared first on TravHQ.

The Travel Technology Track is an initiative by TravHQ & OTM to build a knowledge sharing platform and showcase innovative cutting-edge technologies in the travel sector. Hosted in Mumbai on 19th January 2018, 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.

In one of our sessions, some of the leading innovators in the Indian travel industry will be showcasing their solutions at the Travel Technology Track.

Tripshelf
Tripshelf connects tour operators with travellers looking for holiday packages. We aim to boost the online business of small and medium size tour operators, via digital marketing along witha set of specialised tools to enable them to transact online efficiently. We are doing this through automation, NLP based chat bots, machine learning, customer intelligence to calculate customer willingness scores, algorithmic online marketing and a passionate team of travellers.

Tralgy

Tralgy is a software platform which is established particularly for the travel and tourism industry and was founded in December 2014. It is a SaaS (software as a service) which increases the efficiency, reduces the cost and helps you increase your sales like never before. It strives to provide the best service and utmost satisfaction to travel agents all over the world.

EASA

EASA, is an end-to-end online solution for visa applications for Indian travellers, Travel Agents and Online Travel Agencies. With auto-completion of 70% of any visa form through previously stored customer data, up-to-date visa information, personalised customer data metrics, and document pick-up & drop-off services, EASA’s priority is to reduce anxiety with unmatched convenience & professionalism.

TOUREZEE.COM

Tourezee is a B2B Platform & Marketplace connecting the Traveler, Travel Agents, Destination Management Companies and their Local Suppliers by providing an INNOVATIVE DIGITAL End-2-End Solutions for Upstream (Quote Build & Compare), MidStream (Itinerary) and DownStream (Job Order, Financials and Ratings) activities.

Troliday

Troliday covers gap between Holiday takers and Online Travel Agents so as to reduce planning time/cost and to find perfect holidays for them. We intend to create a revolutionary platform which shall change the current scenario of holiday searching by creating a user friendly portal offering the unbiased comparison of Holiday packages globally.

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