MUMBAI: The Gurgaon-headquartered online travel company Yatra Online (Yatra.com) has received a funding of Rs 2 billion from blue chip investors including Valiant Capital Management, Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) and Intel Capital.
The company said that this new investment will help accelerate its growth plans by enabling it to increase sales and marketing activities, expand its hotels and holidays business and selectively pursue strategic acquisitions.
"Yatra.com has witnessed exponential growth over the last four years making it one of the leading brands and household names in India. This round of funding will enable us to broaden our reach and brand awareness in tier two and tier three towns, which are experiencing tremendous growth in e- commerce. In addition, we will use the funds to accelerate our expansion in the hotels and holidays segments," said Yatra CEO Dhruv Shringi. “Garnering continued support and faith from such reputed investors gives us immense confidence in our business and is a testament to our execution capabilities and strong value proposition in India.”
Already, Yatra.com is backed by investors including Promod Haque’s Silicon Valley-based Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group’s Reliance Capital, Raghav Bahl-promoted Network 18, Intel Capital, the strategic investment arm of Intel, and Valiant Capital Management.
“When we made a seed investment in Yatra.com in 2006, the online travel market in India was still at a nascent stage, but there was a tremendous need for innovation in this sector. We were confident that Yatra.com was at the forefront of the changing face of travel in India and the company was poised for tremendous growth,” said Norwest Venture Partners managing partner and Yatra chairman and board member Promod Haque.
“Over the past few years, we have seen Yatra management continue to execute well. The team has been able to identify, negotiate and successfully integrate strategic acquisitions. The team is focused on building compelling value propositions for customers which has resulted in a strong affinity for the Yatra brand.” said Intel Capital Asia Pacific MD Sudheer Kuppam. “We believe travel will continue to be the dominant ecommerce segment and leads growth of online transactions in the tier 2 and 3 cities in India. This investment is aligned with Intel’s strategic objective of increasing broadband penetration in India through fostering entrepreneurship in compelling content and ecommerce opportunities.”
Yatra.com provides reservation facility for over 3,800 hotels across 336 cities in India and over 90,000 hotels around the world.
