Savvymob, an online marketplace for last minute hotel bookings, has raised $1 million in its seed funding round, which was led by T V Mohandas Pai, along with the participation of LetsVenture, an online platform for fundraising.
With fresh cash infusion, the company will now use the money to expand its operations to another 50 cities by the end of next year. It will also use the money to strengthen its technology team and improve its product.
Founded in April 2014 by Bikram Sohal and Gappan Annamalai, SavvyMob is an on-demand mobile marketplace which offers unsold hotel inventory to last minute travellers at the lowest price. The startup’s target customers are SMEs and independent travellers. It claims of helping them save up to 20% on their hotels costs.
For the company’s hotels partners, it is offering a structured technology driven process for selling on-demand inventory and increasing yield through incremental sales. It has partnered with hotels such as The Lalit, Oberoi Hotels & Resorts, Movenpick, Le Meridien, Royal Orchid, Oyo Rooms, Radisson, Park Plaza, etc.
Just within a few months of its launch, SavvyMob has expanded its network to over 25 cities and 250 hotels in India. It now has presence in all major business and holiday destinations across the country – Srinagar to Cochin, Mumbai to Kolkata.
The mobile application of SavvyMob is available on two major platforms – Android and iOS. The company claims that its team handpicks hotel deals for the user.
Bikram Sohal, co-founder and CEO of the company, said,
It’s still early days in the grand scheme of things in India, mobile technology is still very small. But the people who are spending now and will be spending more in the future are doing it on these devices. This is why we felt the need to address last-minute bookings.
Being a mobile-only platform, the company’s co-founder – Gappan says that they will leaverage the growing smartphone user-base in India. According to a report, the mobile travel booking and advertising market is speculated to reach $400 million+ by 2017.
The startup will compete against the likes of RoomsTonite, which has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from a group of angel investors to fuel its expansion.
