Yatra, one of India’s leading online travel agencies, has raised about $23 million (INR 140 crore) in its fifth funding round.
The raise was led by new investors IDG Ventures India and Vertex Venture Holdings, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Temasek Holdings, the investment arm of the government of Singapore.
The Gurgaon-based company’s existing investors, including Norwest Venture Partners, also participated in the funding round.
This new fund will be used by Yatra to strengthen its domestic hotels and holiday packages business, invest in mobile technology, and brand building.
The company’s recent funding rounds include its $14.5 million Series D round in July 2012, and a $45 million round in April 2011.
Local media report the valuation of Yatra now at about $400 million.
Founder and managing director of IDG Ventures India, Sudhir Sethi, says:
“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.”
Founded in 2006, Yatra now has 15,000 bookable hotels across 450 cities in India and over 200,000 hotels around the world.
Competitors of Yatra include the NASDAQ-listed MakeMyTrip, Cleartrip, and Goibibo.
In one of the recent quarterly reports, MakeMyTrip reported – As of December 31 2013, over 36% of the company’s total net revenue came from the hotels and packages business on a nine-month year-to-date basis. MakeMyTrip has been constantly stressing its increased focus towards the hotels and packages business.
In a span of about 20 months between October 2010 and June 2012, Yatra acquired four companies:
In October 2010, it acquired Travel Services International, a wholesale ticket consolidator
In July 2011, it acquired Magic Rooms, a hotel aggregation company backed by Nexus Venture Partners
In January 2012, it acquired common-investor (Intel Capital) backed online event and movie ticketing company Buzzintown.
In June 2012, it acquired online hotel reservation service Travelguru from Travelocity
Vertex Venture’s other travel industry investments include China-based trip sharing service Breadtrip, and Southeast Asia focused taxi hailing service GrabTaxi.