Yatra
Online Travel Pvt. Ltd. (‘Yatra’), one of India’s largest online travel
companies, today announced a Rs 140 crores funding round led by new investors IDG
Ventures and Vertex Venture Management Pte. Ltd. Yatra’s existing investors, including
seed investor Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), also participated in this round.
The fresh capital will be used to accelerate
the company's growth plans by enabling Yatra to further strengthen its
leadership position in the domestic hotels and holidays business, strategically
invest in mobile technology, and strengthen its position as a market leading
brand in the online travel industry.
“Over the years Yatra.com has witnessed
consistent growth and has created a strong brand for itself in the industry. We
are focused on expanding our reach in the market and further diversifying our
business by growing the hotels and holiday packages business. This new investment
will enable us to enhance our mobile technology, and also strengthen our execution
capabilities,” said Dhruv Shringi, co-founder and CEO of Yatra.com.
Sudhir Sethi, Founder, Chairman and Managing Director
of IDG Ventures India Advisors, said, “The investment in Yatra represents our
Fund II’s strategy of selective growth investments in market leading technology
companies. Driven by Dhruv’s exceptional leadership, the Company has achieved
market leadership in the domestic hotels and packages segment. This is a highly
experienced and cohesive team that has demonstrated an outstanding track record
and shown continued growth in the expanding online travel market in India. We
are delighted to lead this round in Yatra and partner with the existing
investors.”
Promod
Haque, Senior Managing Partner, Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) said, “NVP has continued to increase its
investment in Yatra.com since 2006 when the company was founded. We are pleased
to have witnessed the business go from a
position of strength toa dominant player in the Indian market. The strength of
Yatra.com’s management team combined with the company’s unparalleled focus on creating
compelling value propositions for Indian travelers is the reason why we
continue to back Yatra and believe so strongly in this growing sector.”
Joo Hock Chua, Managing Director & Chief
Investment Officer of Vertex Venture Management, said, “Vertex’s investment
thesis is to invest in great companies and build them into champions.
Yatra is such a company with a trusted name and a dominant position in
the domestic travel industry, helmed by a strong management team under the
leadership of Dhruv. We are happy to join this strong investor group and be
part of the winning team that will contribute to the ongoing success of Yatra
.”
About Yatra.com
Launched in August 2006, Yatra is today ranked as the
leading provider of consumer-direct travel services in India. Yatra.com has
emerged as the most trusted travel brand in India and we were recently voted
‘Most Trusted Brand of India’ in the online travel category by Brand Equity,
and also received the coveted most preferred online travel company award twice
at the CNBC/Awaaz Consumer Travel Awards.
Based in Gurgaon, India, Yatra is a one-stop-shop for
all travel-related services including, Airline reservation, hotel bookings,
holiday packages, rail and bus tickets. A leading consolidator of travel
products, Yatra.com provides reservation facility for more than 15,000 hotels
across 450 cities in India and over 200,000 hotels around the world.
Customers can access Yatra.com multiple ways: through
Yatra.com’s user-friendly website, 24x7 multi-lingual call centre, a
countrywide network of Holiday Lounges and through their mobile phones.
Yatra’s existing investors are: Norwest Venture
Partners (NVP), Reliance Capital, Network 18, Intel Capital, and Valiant
Capital Partners.
About
Norwest Venture Partners
Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) is a multi-stage
venture capital and growth equity investment firm that has partnered with
entrepreneurs to build great businesses for more than 50 years. The firm
manages over $3.7 billion in capital and has funded more than 500 companies
since inception. Headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif., NVP has subsidiaries in
Mumbai and Bengaluru, India and Herzelia, Israel. NVP makes early to late-stage
venture and growth equity investments across a wide range of sectors including:
technology, information services, business services, financial services,
consumer products/services and healthcare. For more information,
please visit www.nvp.com Follow NVP on Twitter @NorwestVP
About IDG Ventures India (www.idgvcindia.com)
IDG Ventures India is a leading technology venture
capital fund in India. The fund is part of IDG Ventures, a global network of
technology venture funds with over $5.5 billion under management with over 220
investee companies and 10 offices across Asia and North America. By combining
the IDG platform — an unparalleled combination of global publishing, market
research (IDC), and conferences and exhibition resources — with years of
hands-on experience in early-stage company building, IDG Ventures India helps
its investee companies understand their markets better and achieve leadership position
ahead of competition. IDG Ventures has been an early investor in digital
consumer companies such as Ctrip, Netscape, Baidu, Tencent, BabyCenter, Sohu,
Vancl and VinaGame. In India, IDG Ventures has invested in leading digital
consumer companies such as Myntra, Brainbees (FirstCry.com) Vserv Digital,
Valyoo (Lenskart.com), Apalya Technologies, Sourcebits Technologies, Ozone
Media and Actoserba (Zivame.com).
For IDG Ventures India related queries, please
contact:
Karan Mohla
About Vertex
Venture (“Vertex”) (www.vertexmgt.com)
Vertex Venture is the wholly-owned venture capital
subsidiary of Temasek Holdings Pte Ltd.
Vertex was established in 1988 and it is today the longest operating
venture capital firm in Asia. We are
headquartered in Singapore with more than 25 investment professionals spread
across our offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Bangalore, Taipei, Silicon Valley and Singapore. Vertex focuses on investing in early stage,
disruptive opportunities. In terms of
sectors, we invest mainly in the Information Technology, Mobile and Healthcare
sectors. With our long history of
venture investing experience and coupled with providing the right amount of
financial and business support, Vertex has been successful in building and
nurturing many young start-ups into leaders and champions in its
industries. For example, we have been a
key and early investor in Gemplus (now called Gemalto), Creative Technologies,
Reebonz, Clearbridge Biomedics, 91Wireless, IGG, Meilele, GrabTaxi Holdings and
Reverse Logistics Co.
For information, please contact:
Avian Media,
Chennai
Krishna Moorthy - 9442191717
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