SUMMARY
Ashish Gupta of Helion VC also participated in the round
ITILITE will use funds to grow its engineering team
The funds will accelerate ITILITE’s sales and marketing plans
Bengaluru-based B2B SaaS travel startup ITILITE has raised $4.2 Mn (INR 30 Cr) in a Series A round of funding led by Matrix Partners and others. Existing investor, Ashish Gupta, founder of Helion VC, also participated in the round.
The company plans to use the funds to grow its engineering team for the development of new capabilities, and simultaneously accelerate its sales and marketing efforts.
Founded in 2017 by Mayank Kukreja and Anish Khadiya, ITILITE is a SaaS-integrated travel desk solution for corporates and helps them reduce travel cost and improve booking experience, through a unique model of incentivising employees to save on their travel expense.
ITILITE covers bookings for flights, hotels, buses and other associated travel services. The company’s USP is its incentive programme through which employees are rewarded for the savings they make for their company during travel.
ITILITE’s AI-powered algorithms predict the cost for every trip and let the traveller keep half the savings they make by choosing cost-conscious options, for example, staying in a 3-star hotel while allowed to stay in a 4 star.
“The rapid momentum gained by ITILITE in the last one year is a testament to the company’s innovative SaaS product and business model; this also further strengthens their position in the business travel space,” said Gourav Bhattacharya, director, Matrix India.
After raising a seed round from Matrix Partners and other angel investors in November 2017, the company was a part of the fourth cohort of Oracle’s Startup Cloud Accelerator Programme in India.
The company claims that its cutting-edge tech improves the booking experience while enhancing visibility and control for the company. The founders claim that this model has resulted in a 30% M-o-M growth for the company over the last 12 months.
India’s business travel market is expected to reach $93 Bn by 2030, as business travel spending in the country is projected to record a compound annual growth rate of 12% through 2020.
In the day and age of online travel aggregators, the niche market for travel corporate solutions is a force to reckon with as the travel and tourism become an increasing part of India’s job and business culture.
