Dipti Gore
Hotel booking site Stayzilla.com has raised $20 million in a Series B funding from Nexus Capital with participation from existing investor Matrix Partners India.Stayzilla.com is based out of Chennai and is run by Inasra Technologies Pvt Ltd.
As part of the deal, Anup Gupta, managing director, Nexus Venture Partners, will join the board of the company.
The company has plans to use these funds to expand into new towns and cities. This is expected to help them strengthen their presence in the ‘alternate stay’ market in India by bringing on board more options for home-stays, guesthouses and serviced apartments.
“This investment will help us expand exponentially and tap newer destinations. We will also focus on inflecting the nascent alternative accommodations market in India which is several times larger than the hotel reservations industry,” said Yogendra Vasupal, founder and CEO, Stayzilla.com.
“The increasing penetration of internet and smartphones coupled with India’s dynamic demographics has created the need for a platform that aggregates the entire range of accommodations options in India. We are happy to partner with Vasupal and the Stayzilla team to capitalise on the potential of this model in the coming years,” said Anup Gupta about the deal .
Stayzilla.com currently has 20,000 hotels, lodges, jungle lodges, boat houses, and home-stays registered on its portal across 4,000 towns in India. By the end of this year, the company plans to The company has set a target to reach over 8,000 towns and have 50,000 accommodations listed on its portal by the end of this year.
After extensive travel across the country and a complete understanding of the ‘value & budget’ segment, Sachit, Rupal and Yogendra decided to start Stayzilla.com in August 2005. They tried and tested different industry segments, but it was the ‘value & budget’ segment that got them excited and thus Stayzilla.com was born. (Read full story of Stayzilla here !)