الثلاثاء، 31 مارس 2015

StartUp : StayZilla : How Stayzilla came in the top five online travel agents in the country


Background:
Yogendra Vasupal, a dropout student from college who has keen interest in books came to know about computers in 1999, started undertaking freelance projects and web based applications and e-commerce portals. After earning about Rs.1 lakh from his freelance work, he wanted to do something with books but in search of its value he and his two friends, Sachit Singhi and Rupal Surana became online travel agents.

Yogi (as his friends’ call him) wanted to launch an e-commerce portal of his own. After studying market he along with his both friends launched ‘Stayzilla’.
Chennai-based Stayzilla claims to be the largest in the alternate stays segment, which books in the budget and value-stay segment. It also claims to be one of the top five online travel agents in the country.

Fund raising:
Started in 2010, Stayzilla has more than 1,200 locations with over 20,000 properties in its platform. It has raised $20 million, series-B round of funding, from Nexus Capital and existing investors Matrix partners to fund its expansion plan. Unlike other entrepreneurs, funds were never a major issue for them as Yogendra was already earning enough to pitch in initially called Inasra.com, it was rebranded as Stayzilla in 2010.

Current Status:
Sachit Singhi is the director, partnership, at Stayzilla and takes care of daily operations. Rupal Surana is the chief operating officer at Stayzilla. He said that when there were no other opponents in the segments in internet was not so popular, they went to meet hotels owners in Tier-II Tier-III cities and convinced them to tie up.

Scale up:
Sachit Singhi said the company hopes to close the financial year with a gross booking value of Rs.70 crore as compared to Rs.12 crore in 2013-14.They are targeting Rs.500 crore gross booking value in 2015-16 as we are growing nerly 10 times year-on-year.

Snippets from the Start up World
OYO Rooms raises RS.150 crore
Oyo Rooms, a network of budget hotels, has raised Rs.150 crore from Lightspeed, Sequoia and Greenoals Capital. It claims it has 200 hotels in 10 cities and books 50,000 room nights a month. It plans to expand its network to 1,000 hotels in 25 cities by this end of this year.

Roposo.com raises $5 million
Roposo.com, a social network focussing on fashion, backed by flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal , has raised $5 million in a series-A investment led by the technology-venture investor Tiger Global, the company stated. Existing investors such as Indian Quotient and Bansal also participated in this round.

Teewe raises $1.7 million
Mango Man Consumer Electronics, owners of HDMI dongle Teewe, which allows users to stream video content from a smartphone and watch it on their smart television, has raised $1.7 million from venture capital funds Sequoia Capital and India Quotient, according to media reports. It plans to use the money to buid new devices focusing on music and audio.

Urjas Energy raises $100,000
Mumbai-based Urjas Energy Systems has raised $100.000 in angel funding for its expansions plans. The three year old clean technology company makes multi-fuel gasifiers that work with the variety of agro wastes, which can replace fossil fuels used for heating in industries. The company is currently being incubated by IIT-Bombay’s Society for innovation and entrepreneurship and began commercialising its product eight months ago.

Yogurt labs raises Rs.72 Lakh
Mobile video production firm yogurt labs has raised Rs.72 lakhs in convertible notes from a clutch of investors Nick Adams and Kiran Bhat, the author of No Holy Cows in Business. Convertible notes are an instrument used by seed investors who wish to delay establishing a valuation until a later round of funding. Yogurt has developed a do-it-yourself platform for videos.

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