RailYatri.in, which provides real time information regarding trains in India, has announced that it has raised an undisclosed amount in the latest funding round from Nandan Nilekani, co-founder of Infosys.
In addition to Nandan Nilekani, the current funding round also saw participation from the company’s existing investors – Helion Ventures, Omidyar Networks, and Blume Ventures.
With the new cash coming to the company, it is now planning to launch an array of new services along with efforts to further increase its userbase.
While the company has not revealed the amount of funding of particular series round, it said that the fundraising activity was aimed at getting Nandan Nilekani on-board as an investor.
Commenting about funding, Nandan Nilekani, said,
What excites me about RailYatri is the fact that this is a new-age product made by Indians for Indians. The RailYatri app, which intelligently harnesses the power of smartphones, data and mobile payments, has a huge opportunity of impacting the lives of millions of travelers.
Kapil Raizada, co-founder of the company, said,
Our aspirations align with Mr. Nilekani and we believe his treasure trove of experience will help us in our endeavors. RailYatri app is already among the fastest growing travel apps in India and we are now ready to take it to the next level. In the next couple of years we want RailYatri to reach out and help in the travel of each and every traveler in India.
RailYatri was founded in 2011 by Manish Rathi, Kapil Raizada and Sachin Saxena. It is a comprehensive hub of train travel information that works to give its users insightful information to help them plan and take their train travel decisions in a better way.
It offers services such as Railway Alert System, Live Train Station, Arrival / Departure, PNR Status, Rail Wisdom, Time Table, Trains between Stations, Platform Locator, and Seat Availability. Recently, it also introduced meal booking on train.
The app is only available of Android platform as of now. It provides crowdsourced information for numerous railway aspects such as train status, platforms, seat availability predictions, station facilities, and personalized alerts.
RailYatri had raised pre-Series A round of funding in 2015, led by Helion Venture Partners along with participation of others. Prior to that, it had raised its seed funding round from Blume Ventures in 2014.
The company aims to serve users with inclusive and comprehensive information that helps in making informed decisions, thus simplifying train travels. It currently serves nearly two million users per month. The feature covers about 4,000 stations and is set to be expanded to 6,000 in the coming months.
