With an aim to accelerate mobile offerings to the Indian travellers, the Bangalore-based travel and holiday information portal, HolidayIQ has announced the acquisition of travel mobile development team from SourceN, a mobile development firm.
Founded by Deepak Ramachandran and Ajay Ramachandran in 2004, SourceN is based out of Silicon Valley, USA and Bangalore, India. The firm has been building and designing mobile applications for iOS, Android and Windows, following an agile and innovative approach to provide mobility solutions. It has worked with global brands like Apple, Dell, HP, Intel and SAP.
“Our team that has joined HolidayIQ is eager to bolster HolidayIQ’s mobile application development capabilities and make the HolidayIQ app the best travel app for millions of Indian travelers,” said Karma Bhutia, Managing Partner, SourceN.
Commenting on the acquisition, Hari Nair, Founder and CEO, HolidayIQ said, “Mobile continues to be the core focus at HolidayIQ and this acquisition is a step in that direction. The SourceN team’s in-depth understanding of mobile consumer behaviour in travel will further strengthen our Holidays product and also create a more robust engine enabling easier and seamless sharing of travel reviews, ratings, images and video on mobile.” HolidayIQ will continue to make investments in strengthening our mobile capabilities, he added.
Founded in 2004, HolidayIQ is not a typical travel agent and does not do bookings directly, but operates on user generated content. It enables travelers discover, plan holidays and share holiday experiences. Earlier, the company had raised four rounds of funding since 2010 from its existing investors Tiger Global Management and Accel Partners. As per the reports, the startup is gearing up for a ‘large’ round in this year.
The company claims to have over 30 Lakh members from more than 80 Indian cities. The portal also claims it lists over 2,000 tourism destinations and 50,000+ accommodation options in India. With the penetration of smartphones in India rising exponentially, HolidayIQ had also launched its mobile application and gets over 65% of user activity via mobile devices.
