Qik Stay, Delhi-based budget hotel branding and aggregator startup, has announced that it has raised $2,50,000 in seed funding from venture capital firm ID Enablers Pvt Ltd. With this new funding coming to the company, it is now looking forward to expand its operations to other cities in the nation.
Founded in June 2015 by Jasveer Singh along with a group of hospitality experts, the company was earlier known as ZoZo Stay, and has now re-branded as QiK Stay. It wants to provide premium quality hotels at affordable prices, and a unique standardized experience with ease of booking.
It is currently operating in Delhi, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Kanpur and Lucknow. The company has also partnered with over 30 hotels.
The company assures that the customers get services AC rooms with TV, Wi-Fi, breakfast, premium bed linen, laundry, most hygienic washrooms and toiletries across all of their partner hotels.
It is currently available as mobile application on Android as well as on iOS platform. Users can also access its service by visiting company’s website.
Jasveer Singh, founder and CEO of the company, said,
For a hospitality company like ours, most of the players are not focusing on the most important aspects – customer service and satisfaction. All they are thinking about is increasing customer base right now, which we believe will be detrimental to their long-term growth. Which is where we come in – we guarantee uniform quality and services across all our hotels while at the same time not burning a hole in the customer’s pocket.
Unlike our competitors who are aggregating all sorts of hotels, lodges, etc, we only hand-pick very few premium hotels at prime locations. This will not only help us eventually grow as a trusted service provider, but will also let the customers make a trouble-free choice.
Anshuman Kapur, one of the investor of the company, said,
QiK Stay is an offering which the customers actually need today. Not only does it aim to cater to a social need of affordable premium hotels, it is also capitalizing on the estimated $25-40 billion hotel market in India. We’ve already acquired more than 30 hotels in Delhi-NCR, UP and Punjab, and expect to go pan India in the coming months. We are planning to do so by rolling out unique and exciting offers and programs which we shall disclose in due course of time.
The total estimated hotel industry market size in India is about $25 billion $40 billion. In this space, the company compete against the likes of Oyo Rooms, which recently raised $100 million in a funding round led by Japan’s SoftBank. Other player in the budget hotel space include Zo Rooms, which is a part of Zostel.
Recently, Zo Rooms launched a new service offering called Zo Prime, a budget premium offering of three star hotels. Also, Oyo Rooms recently launched Oyo WE, a budget hotel chain exclusively for women travelers.
