Founded by an 18 year old, Oravel Stays Raises Seed Funding from VentureNursery’s Angels

Monday October 15, 2012 , 3 min Read

VentureNursery, an angel-backed start-up accelerator has announced a seed investment by its angel investors in Oravel Stays, based in Gurgaon. Oravel is focused on the short and midterm rentals space and is an aggregator of Bed and Breakfast, Private Rooms and Serviced Apartments which enables travellers to book clean, comfortable, affordable spaces. Oravel, which is primarily focussed on NCR region at present, is getting very good traction from SME’s, International, MICE travellers and medical tourists. The company’s website has over 4000 properties listed across metros and others parts of India. 20% of its properties are theme based and offer a unique stay experience to the guests.

Oravel was **founded in 2011 by 18 year old Ritesh Agarwal**, who comes from a family business background of Infrastructure. The company joined VentureNursery’s acceleration program in July, 2012 and has graduated with a Platinum grade.

According to Ritesh Agarwal, “The bed and breakfast segment is an exciting opportunity in Indian e-commerce. Given the increasing size of this segment, our understanding of this space in terms of managing customer expectations and property owners will be the key to expand.”

Mr Manish Sinha, owner of one of India’s most loved boutique bed and breakfast properties, Gurgaon based Cinnamon Stays, has joined Oravel as a co-founder. Manish brings over 16 years of experience of brand building across some of the biggest advertising groups and deep operations experience of bed and breakfast space.

Ravi Kiran, Co-founder, VentureNursery said “In Ritesh, our Charter Angels found exceptional passion, high energy and ability to overcome tough situations. Manish adds maturity of thinking, professional experience and depth of domain knowledge having personally built and run one of the best known bread and breakfast brands in NCR and served many demanding guests from within India and overseas successfully.”

Shravan Shroff, Co-founder, VentureNursery added, “The B&B space is a large and underserved segment in India and all indicators appear strong. Oravel has been showing good traction and has made excellent progress during the acceleration program. We hope the mentoring by our advisors and this round of seed funding by our angels will help Oravel pick up momentum is on its way to build a great business”

Oravel has so far been funded by promoter capital. This round of funds will be utilized for team, technology and network expansion.

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