B2B Travel Tech Platform TravClan Raises USD 2.2 million in a Pre-Series A Round
Delhi: TravClan, one of the fastest growing global B2B travel tech platforms, having grown 10x in the since the pandemic hit, has raised USD 2.2 million in Pre-Series A round. The investment round was led by TheVentures, a Korea and Singapore based venture capital firm, and Leo Capital, who had also led the seed round in August 2019. The round also saw participation from global and marquee angel investors.
Technology is playing a crucial role in the revival of travel businesses globally after the industry was severely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. TravClan has been at the forefront of helping travel business leverage technology to earn a livelihood. TravClan is empowering travel agents and new age travel entrepreneurs to build and grow their travel business online by setting up websites and sell products digitally. It also provides marketing tools that allow its users to generate more demand from social media, and earn more profit by booking flights, hotels, holidays with suppliers across the world at best B2B prices on its platform.
Speaking about investment, Arun Bagaria, Co-founder & CEO, TravClan, said, “Covid-19 has severely affected livelihood of more than 100 million people across the world who lost their jobs due to the pandemic. However, the urge to travel is innate to every human being and we are seeing strong consumer demand as vaccinations pick up. At TravClan, we are rebuilding the entire industry, one travel business at a time. We are humbled by the strong customer adoption and the profound impact we have been able to create in the lives of thousands of travel entrepreneurs using TravClan daily. This milestone is a result of our entire team’s belief and motivates us to continue working harder to empower travel businesses”
TravClan was co-founded by Arun Bagaria, Chirag Agrawal, Ashish Thapliyal who have previously worked with each other in key leadership roles at Oyo, Travel Triangle and Cars24. From their personal experiences of working in travel industry, the founders deeply understand the challenges faced by 200,000 plus small and medium travel agents in India. Some of these include generating demand online, sourcing flights, hotel and holiday bookings at best prices, finding reliable on-ground suppliers and cost-effective payments and credit solutions. TravClan is a global ecosystem for travel and is building an end to end operating system for anyone selling travel.
Rajul Garg, Founder & Managing Partner, Leo Capital, added, “We partnered with Arun, Chirag and Ashish in August 2019 when the business was growing rapidly before the pandemic hit. The resilience, conviction and ability to grow displayed by the founders at a time when other companies struggled to survive, speaks volumes about the quality of founding team. With governments globally are driving vaccination at unprecedented pace, revival in travel is imminent. We are excited about the tremendous opportunity to build a global travel platform that solves challenges faced by millions of travel companies”
Pre-Covid, about 70% of the company’s business was from international holidays. Post pandemic, TravClan has reimagined how travel agents and advisors can restart their business and earn their livelihood. Thousands of travel agents have taken their business online and built their website using TravClan. TravClan helps these agents market and grow their business online while managing entire operations including bookings, collection & payment of money, invoicing online. It also provides its agents a simple and convenient way to book travel products. This is reflected in the company’s growth as its monthly bookings have increased nearly ten times compared to pre-COVID levels, and the customer base has more than tripled organically.
Speaking about it, Chris Kim, Partner, TheVentures, said, “The travel and hospitality sector accounted for one in four job creations in the world in 2019. TravClan makes it easier than ever before for anyone to start monetizing their passion by selling travel and related experiences to customers. TravClan is expanding the assistance-led travel market as it allows new age travel advisors and digital travel influencers to start their business in an easy, cost-effective and digital-first era to meet the demands of the new-age customer. We are strong believers in the business model and excited to partner with the company at this pivotal point.”
TravClan’s vision is to empower SMBs in travel across the world to grow their business. It aims to bring on board over 10 million SMBs and enable a GMV of over $10 billion by 2025 on its platform. The company has already crossed the pre-COVID revenue, and now aims to grow 10x over the next 12 months. TravClan’s successful fundraise reverses the trend in an industry which is among the hardest hit by the global pandemic.
About TravClan
TravClan is a disruptive B2B Travel Platform bringing in the technology-driven transformation to the US $100 billion offline travel market in India and South East Asia. The Leo Capital funded venture was established in 2018 by Arun Bagaria, Chirag Agarwal, and Ashish Thapliyal who previously worked in senior leadership roles at startups like Oyo, Cars24, TravelTriangle. Within a short span of two years, TravClan has become a one-stop-shop for travel agents offering them support in generating leads online, creating their own website, planning holiday packages and itineraries, and offering global hotel bookings as well as flight ticket sales, etc.
About 83% of the agents surveyed have catered to first-time customers (those who never used travel agents’ services before). This is a key indicator of how an increasing number of travelers are now turning towards travel agents and trip planners. Compared to large OTAs and marketplaces, travel agencies are being preferred as the need for personalization, and real-time connectivity has increased significantly in the post pandemic times.
people travel more, the travel agents are anticipating over 75% of the holidaymakers in the near future to be in the 30 to 50 years of age group. This indicates more likelihood of couple and family travels’ share increasing in the market. There is also a greater rise in the segment of people willing to spend more to get better services and experiences compared to the budget conscious travelers.