TravelTriangle looks to raise $30 million in third round of fund raising

NEW DELHI: Holiday Triangle Travel, which owns and operates TravelTriangle.com, an online marketplace for discovering travel agents, is in the market to raise about $30 million (about Rs 201 crore) in its third round of fund raising.

The five-year-old Noida-based venture, which counts marquee venture capital firms SAIF Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners among its existing backers, has mandated merchant bank Investec to scout for potential investors, according to sources privy to the developments.
Both, SAIF Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners, have also committed to participate in the series C round of funding, said the sources cited above. It is yet unclear the exact quantum of funds that the two existing backers will or have already committed to the company, and the valuation TravelTriangle is seeking.

“We at TravelTriangle are focused on building India's largest holiday marketplace, and so of course we speak with potential investors from time to time who wish to join us on that journey. We have nothing more to comment at this time,” a company spokesperson said in an email response.

Investec, however, declined to comment.

The latest capital-raising exercise comes close to nine months after the company was reported to have raised $8 million (about Rs 53 crore) from Bessemer in April last year.

Prior to that round of funding, the venture had raised about Rs 10 crore from India and China-focused multi-stage investor SAIF Partners.

Founded in 2010 by IIT graduates Sankalp Agarwal, Sanchit Garg and Prabhat Gupta, TravelTriangle not only connects consumers with travel agents, but also allows them to choose, personalize and book the best travel packages, as per their preferences.

The company claims to have more than 450 local travel agents spread over 35 destinations, local and international.

The equity financing exercise also comes at a time when raising larger follow-on rounds are expected to become tougher, with investors insisting portfolio companies focus more on bottom lines than growth at all costs.

Total funding for Indian venture capital-backed companies topped $12 billion (Rs 80,000 crore) across more than 1,220 deals in the past two years, with $7.3 billion invested in over 880 deals in 2015 alone, according to startup data aggregator Tracxn.

“Over the past two years some crazy amount of funding has come in, so we should expect a lot more sanity in 2016... It has already started, and will get even more stringent,” pointed out TCM Sundaram, co-founder of IDG Ventures India, in an earlier conversation with ET.

The broader travel industry, however, has seen investor participation with Tripoto Travel, which owns and operates travel itinerary portal Tripoto.com, raising an undisclosed amount from a consortium of investors, including 500 Startups, IDG Ventures India and advantEdge Partners, in October last year.

Earlier this month, Chinese online travel major Ctrip.com International agreed to invest $180 million (Rs 1,204 crore) in India's largest online travel company, Nasdaq-listed MakeMyTrip.com.