Bengaluru-based TripFactory raises series A funding from Mohandas Pai's Aarin Capital Partners
Bengaluru-based TripFactory.com has raised its Series A funding round led by Mohandas and Dr Ranjan Pai’s Aarin Capital Partners.
“We will utilize the funding in building technology, content, marketing, and operation. The venture will use the new round of funding in the business growth and will invest in building a solid technology team and mobile expertise,” says Vinay Gupta, Co-founder of TripFactory.
Launched in 2014 by Vinay Gupta and Amit Aggarwal, who also founded Via.com, TripFactory is an online customized holiday store. It provides packages to travellers curated by tour experts and travel operators.
Customization is at the core of the offering. TripFactory also allows holidays to be customized and priced online by customers. Based on natural language processing algorithms and machine learning programs, it allows consumers to search and customize travel plan in plain text; for example, consumers can search plan by typing ‘Goa packages near beach under 10000’ or ‘fly from Bangalore to Delhi next Tuesday and stay in a 5-star hotel’. It claims to offer the backend technology and experts who can construct a package in real-time and do the customization in detail.
“India is a large growing market for both domestic and outbound travel and most consumers like personalizing their own holidays or seeking assistance by talking to experts who can plan for them. We are making that whole experience seamless using technology,” says Amit Aggarwal, Co-founder and CEO, TripFactory.
The startup has already sold around 4,000 holidays with a gross value of over US$ 2 million in its first year of operations. The company provides choice from over 10,000 holidays at over 100 destinations. TripFactory also partners with Airlines such as Jet Airways, Go Air, SpiceJet & Air Costa to power holidays and flight plus many hotels on their own websites.
Talking about the investment, Mohandas Pai, Co-Founder Aarin Capital says, “I see good opportunity and rapid growth already over the last few months and I am excited to be a part of their journey in building TripFactory as India’s largest holiday company.”
Insight into industry
The overseas travel industry is growing at 40 percent CAGR year-on-year. The leisure travel market in India as of today is about $80 billion annually which is set to grow to $150 billion by 2024.
According to VCCEdge report, Venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) funds have invested $115.69 million across 13 deals in the travel segment in 2014, much higher than the $8.2 million across nine transactions in 2013.
In April this year, Delhi-based travel marketplace, Travel Triangle raised $8 million in Series B funding from Bessemer Venture Partners with participation from existing investor SAIF Partners.
During March 2015, Delhi-based Tripoto raised Series A round of funding from IDG Ventures India and existing investor Outbox Ventures.
In the past few years, the biggies such as MakeMytrip, Cleartrip, and Yatra have also observed an enormous growth. During mid July 2014, MakeMyTrip was valued at $ 1.1 billion with 8.3 million unique visitors per month in fiscal 2014. The company has grown from 30 employees in 2000 to more than 1000 in 2014.
Cleartrip shares that the OTA gets more than six million users on desktop and 2.5 million users on mobile per month. Cleartrip employs over 450 people currently.
Since its inception, Yatra has grown to a 1000+ member team and gets more than 5.5 million users per month.