Bengaluru: Travel planning platform TripHobo has raised $3 million (Rs 18.8 crore) from Mayfield and existing investor Kalaari Capital. Proceeds from the Series B funding will be used mainly for user acquisition and scaling up content, cofounder and Chief Technology Officer Saket Newaskar said.
Founded in 2012 as JoGuru, TripHobo allows users to plan and book customised holidays based on user-generated travel itineraries. It currently hosts 70,000 such itineraries in more than 400 cities, and aims to reach over 4 lakh itineraries in over 2,000 cities with the fund injection. Currently, around a third of its users are from India, with another third from the US and a quarter from Europe.
“We are looking at covering locations that are not that popular but are traveller-friendly tourism hubs, specifically in emerging markets like China, India and Africa,” said Newaskar.
This development comes as the Indian travel sector is heating up rapidly, having received $71 million in funding so far in 2015 mostly in early-stage and seed funding, as opposed to $55 million in all of 2014, according to startup data tracked Tracxn. TripHobo had received Series A funding in last July.
“We believe that customisation is going to be the game changer for the travel industry in the coming years. Travellers are no longer satisfied with ‘one size fits all’ holidays and are demanding unique experiences,” commented Sumit Jain, principal at Kalaari Capital.
