Mumbai-based Goomo, an online travel portal, has raised $50 million in its new funding round from private equity firm Emerging India. With this new investment, Emerging India picks up a majority stake in the company.
Commenting on this development, a spokesperson for Emerging India said,
The travel industry in India offers immense opportunities for growth and consolidation. Over the past 12 months we have built a great team with a strong foundation. We are excited about the growth prospects of the business and expect the team to create a great India-focussed travel distribution business in the next two-three years.
Emerging India is a Mauritius-based private equity fund that invests in growth-stage companies. The fund invests across multiple asset classes, including long-only equities, fixed income, credit strategies, private equity, and fund of funds.
Goomo.com website was launched in March earlier this very year. The company was formed by the merger of Orbit Corporate and Leisure Tours in November 2015. The said startup provides 360-degree accessibility through a user-friendly website, mobile apps, multi-lingual call center, and a network of travel agents.
Currently, the company has more than 300 employees across 15 cities in India and Germany. Varun Gupta, CEO, Goomo said,
Goomo is being built ground up to be an omnichannel platform that will facilitate corporate and consumer travel bookings across online and offline channels.
The online travel space has seen many deals in recent times. MakeMyTrip and Yatra have raised significant amounts of capital, while venture capital firms are continuing to back startups operating in the sector.
Last month, MakeMyTrip raised $330 million in the biggest round of funding in the Indian online travel space. In June last year, Yatra had raised around $92.5 million after it entered into a reverse merger agreement with U.S-based, Nasdaq-listed special-purpose acquisition company Terrapin 3 Acquisition.
