This stealth-mode travel startup has raised Rs 5 Cr within two months: Here's all you need to know
Technogram Solutions, a SaaS offering for corporate and B2B travel consolidators to not only increase productivity but actually grow their business, has raised Rs 5 crore equity financing from a group of angel investors merely two months into their journey, since they started their operations. Here is all you need to know about the young company, the duo behind it, and how they plan to "radically improve" the way travel companies do business.
Meet Team Technogram
Co-founder Ashu Gupta, 32, is an IIT Roorkee alumnus, and holds a Masters in Computer Science. He started his career working for Austin-based software company Trilogy, and went on to work at Via.com - where he collected nine years of experience in travel technology, four of which were as Engineering Director heading India and South East Asian Countries
Co-founder Sanjay Khurana's trajectory is somewhat identical; also 32, he's an IP University Alumnus, and holds a Masters in Computer Science as well, with collectively nine years of experience in IT, six of which were spent at Jabong.com - and the last two, as their Principal Engineer.
Why they started UP
Close brushes with the B2B travel landscape in developing markets convinced Ashu that the technology available to the B2B and corporate travel industry in India and SE Asia can be radically improved upon. "Today travel technology is primarily a business process and productivity tool – we are upgrading it to a business growth and customer engagement enabler. We are taking all our learnings in travel and ecommerce to enable higher yield for the business, and a superior experience and value for the end-customer," states Ashu.
This is how they do it
Targeting corporate and B2B travel consolidators, their product is a one-stop-shop for all travel needs. Some of the planned features, apart from the basic functionality, of course, will be, agent interaction tool, Google Voice to Text Search, most suitable recommendations, based on search history, price prediction, better integration with mobile devices and more dynamic aesthetics - to help emphasise on the product and service, rather than the website itself, social media integration to share the experience and make recommendations and so on. Some of the use-cases include self-booking tools for corporates, customised feature addition and subtraction based on use, customised reporting, agent markup and commission, incorporating deals, etc.
"The client is charged on usage. We are currently working with a few selected alpha clients in stealth mode, and planning to roll out in September 2018," he reveals.
What the investors are saying
They closed an angel round of Rs 5 crore with a group of angel investors on Wednesday, represented by Subinder Khurana who will also be joining them as an adviser.
"The travel industry is evolving rapidly with changing customer expectations, suppliers opening up their APIs and unbundling services for customers, and agents looking for business growth enablers beyond basic transaction functionality. This evolution has created a growing gap in the B2B travel technology space, which Technogram is addressing. The company has already signed alpha customers and plans to make the products generally available in the Indian and South East Asian markets by the end of the year. We are confident that the strong background of the founders and the early customer validation made this a compelling proposition,” says Subinder Khurana, investor nominee and strategic adviser to the company.
"We will use the seed funding to build an industry-leading product, create initial customer success, and make the early sales and marketing investments. We will further augment the management team too, as we start to scale," says Ashu, signing off.