Tripfactory, an online holiday package store which provides users with expert-curate tour package suggestions and booking options, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding in Series A round of funding from T.V. Mohandas Pai’s Aarin Capital.
The new round of funding will be used by the company to grow its business. Founders tell us that fresh capital will also be invested into building a solid technology team and mobile expertise.
Founded in 2014 by Vinay Gupta and Amit Aggarwal, ex-founders of Via.com, the company was self-funded till now. It provides tour packages which have been curated by tour experts and travel operators.
These curated packages can further be enhanced by the customers. Currently, the company is providing choice from over 10,000 holidays at over 100 destinations. It also partners with Airlines such Jet Airways, Go Air, SpiceJet & Air Costa to power holidays and Flight + Hotels on their own websites.
It claims to have already sold around 4,000 holidays with a gross value of over US$ 2 Million in its first year of its operations.
Running on a marketplace model, TripFactory has partnered with 2,800 tour operators in over 38 countries to provide customizeable trip packages, setting up a rare example of a boot-strapped startup from India, going global in initial days itself.
As per the company, they have developed natural language processing algorithms and machine learning programs which allows consumers to search in plain text. The back-end technology and experts construct a package in real-time that can be customized in detail.
Amit Aggarwal, co-founder and CEO of the company, said,
India is a large growing market for both domestic and outbound travel and most consumers like personalizing their own holidays or seek assistance by talking to experts who can plan for them and we are making that whole experience seamless using technology.
Mohandas Pai, Co-Founder Aarin Capital, who invested in this funding round, said,
TripFactory has a strong and experienced team in its founders and their team, earlier having built Via.com. I see good opportunity and rapid growth already over the last few months and I’m excited to be a part of their journey in building TripFactory as India’s Largest Holiday Company.
The overseas travel industry for leisure is growing at 40% CAGR year-on-year. As, the leisure travel market in India is valued at about $80 billion and is set to grow to $150 billion by 2024, the company is trying to establish its presence in the market.
In this space, the company will compete with the likes of MakeMyTrip, Travel Triangel, iBibo group and certain other smaller players. In a related travel industry development, MakeMyTrip today acquired a majority stake in Bona Vita Technologies.
