WeAreHolidays raises a funding round from Matrix Partners and existing investors
Matrix Partners India has today announced its investment in WeAreHolidays, an online marketplace for booking customized holiday packages. Matrix Partners India along with the existing angel investors Blume Ventures and GSF Superangel Investors, co-invested in this round of equity funding for the Company. WeAreHolidays will use the funds to grow its business and deepen its technology and analytics expertise. The amount of funding has not been disclosed.
WeAreHlidays was co-founded in March 2011 by Deepak Wadhwa, former head of Online Holidays for MakeMyTrip, Harkirat Singh, former Product Manager at MakeMyTrip and Mohit Piplani, who helped set up the India operations for Michael Page International. The company works on a technology enabled managed marketplace model to help people get inspired, research, plan, customize, book and share their holidays. The company leverages its proprietary recommendation platform to create and plan holiday itineraries and services them through its supplier marketplace.
Indians travelling overseas for leisure alone is a $5 to $7 Billion market and is growing at 40% annually. 10% of this comprises complex customized holidays, a segment which is growing much faster than other segments as travellers seek more personalization and control over their holidays. "We believe there is a huge opportunity to leverage technology to re-define the experience of leisure travellers in an industry which has traditionally been very slow at adopting technology & new business models. We’re excited to have Matrix as a partner in this process and our growth,” says Deepak.
“India has become the fastest growing outbound travel market, the number of Indians travelling overseas is set to rise from 17 million to around 50 million by 2020, making it the second largest outbound travel market globally, next only to China. It is our privilege to be associated with the co-founders of WeAreHolidays, who have built a unique managed marketplace model to best serve the progressive Indian traveller,” says Tarun Davda, Vice-President, Matrix India.
The travel sector in India is looking promising at the moment with many large pieces coming together (have a look at the complete travel funnel). WeAreHolidays has survived in the space for more than three years and their persistence and growth has also attracted investor confidence.
Website: WeAreHolidays
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