Chennai based online accommodation bookings marketplace Stayzilla announced a $20 million Series B funding round- the second round of financing for a business by private equity investors- led by Nexus Venture Partners and existing investor Matrix Partners.
The second round is usually accomplished when a company has achieved certain milestones in business. The first round of funding- Series A, was acquired by the company back in October 2013, for an undisclosed amount. The series B funding will be used to develop a stronger platform that promotes the brand name, branch out to further cities and work with organizations and owners that own accommodations to accelerate the growth of the emerging structured and alternate accommodations market here.
Going past the norm of hotel accommodations and bookings, Stayzilla provides options of lodges, homestays, guesthouses, house boats, anything you feel whimsical about; across the length and width of the country, all ranges of costs and all kinds of rooms- ultra-low budget rooms to luxury stays. The revenue flows in through commission rates on bookings. The alternative accommodations are managed by principal peer-to-peer rentals and homestays.
CEO Yogendra Vasupal presents the statistics to us: the service gives you a smorgasbord of 22,000 rooms — 36 percent of which are alternative — across 4,000 towns, as of December 2014. Increasing the ‘alternative’ choices had seen an explosion in profit, seven fold; the company processed nearly $2.8 million in bookings. They aim to expand to hit newer, larger numbers: 8000 towns and 50,000 accommodation listings by the end of the year. Quoting him:
“For accommodation owners and customers, our end-to-end managed marketplace model has been our biggest strength and we will continue to build on this to complement the massive tourism potential across India.”
