FabHotels Raises $7.8 Mn From Goldman Sachs & Others In Its Ongoing Series B Round

Indian budget hotel chain FabHotels has raised INR 54 Cr. (around $7.8 Mn) from existing investor Goldman Sachs along with marquee venture capital firms Qualcomm Ventures, and Accel Partners India, who is one of the early backers of the Delhi-based company.

According to Ministry of Corporate filings accessed by Inc42, Goldman Sachs has acquired 143K shares in the company against a premium of about $35 (INR 2422.1) per share. The total investment made by the American investment bank amounted to around $5 Mn (INR 34.8 Cr).

Accel India invested approximately $2.5 Mn (INR 17 Cr) to acquire 71.6K shares. While Qualcomm Ventures has invested about $301K (INR 2.08 Cr) to acquire 8.5K shares in the company. This development was first reported by a data analytics platform, paper.vc.

FabHotels is a hotel booking platform which operates through franchising arrangements with budget hotels across India. Founded by Adarsh Manpuria and Vaibhav Aggarwal in 2014, FabHotels had raised a total of $42.8 Mn funding till now. It has last raised a $25 Mn Series B round from Goldman Sachs and Accel Partners in 2017. Other investors in the company include Kalaari Capital, RB Investments, and Mohandas Pai-owned Aarin Capital.

In December 2018, FabHotels has claimed to have about 10K hotel rooms across 450 franchising hotels in 40 Indian cities and shared plans to double its inventory to 20K rooms in 2019. Aggarwal had also shared plans to expand into another 20 business and leisure cities such as Manali, Shimla, Vadodara, Coorg, Raipur and Nagpur.

Indian Hospitality Market

According to India’s Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), the hotel and tourism sector has attracted around $12 Bn of foreign direct investment (FDI) between April 2000 to December 2018. It is estimated that the hotel industry will account for around 47% share in the tourism and hospitality sector of India by 2020 and reach up to 50% by 2022.

In the budget hotel bookings space, FabHotels competes with hospitality unicorn OYO, Qik Stay, RedDoorz, and Treebo.

While, Bengaluru-based Treebo has last raised its $34 Mn Series C round in 2017 from Hong Kong-based investment firms Ward Ferry Management and Karst Peak Capital. Indian Hospitality unicorn OYO has been expanding its international footprint along with aggressively adding new verticals. OYO has recently acquired coworking brand Innov8, partnered with Japanese investment firm Softbank to expand into Japan and got a $200 Mn investment from international vacation accommodation marketplace Airbnb.