Nocode SaaS Platform Pathfndr Raises Funding For Building Shopify For Travel In India

MeTripping Technologies Pvt Ltd which operates Pathfndr.io — a no-code SaaS platform that allows any travel seller to launch their digital business within minutes has raised an undisclosed amount in funding.

The platform offers tools such as intelligent dynamic packaging, instant activity itinerary creation, and travel safety index. 

The funding round saw participation from investors such as Arali Ventures, SEA Fund, Wayfare Ventures, KPB Family Trust (family office of KP Balaraj, cofounder of WestBridge Capital and Sequoia Capital India), Acsys Investments, Capital A (family office of Manjushree Ventures). These investors were also joined by prominent angel investors like JAZFund LLC, Shravan Gupta (Built Travel Tours and exited to FCM), as well as founders of unicorns Chargebee and Freshworks.

The company stated that it will deploy the funds to continue to invest in product innovation at scale and increase the global sales team. Pathfndr is working towards setting up operations in North America to cater to the large demand in the region. Additionally, it will also focus on building products to help travel sellers move to a remote-first platform for the 21st-century traveler, and on creating the most comprehensive global supply solution in a single place.

Prior to this round, the company also raised capital from  Haresh Chawla, Krishnakumar Natarajan, Manchanda Capital and Oliphans Capital, among others.

“The travel advisor plays an important role in understanding context and providing comfort to the traveler. They are a crucial cog in what we see as a hybrid service model for the traveler. Through a sub-15 minute onboarding process and a plug-and-play model, we are helping create new monetisation sources for travel agencies and travel influencers (a blue ocean segment) that most didn’t think was possible,” said Varun Gupta, founder and CEO at Pathfndr. 

“Unlike most travel B2B startups providing only price-led solutions to the travel advisors, Pathfndr is among a handful startups in the world providing intelligent, cutting-edge technology products like intelligent dynamic packaging, contextual inspiration, instant activity itinerary creation, travel safety index, while continuing its leadership in B2B User Experience” Gupta added. 

When talking about Pathfindr, Rajiv Raghunandan, managing partner at Arali Ventures said “Pathfndr enables the small and medium-sized travel agencies and influencers to become truly digital and levels the playing field for them with the large online travel aggregators on dimensions such as consumer experience, flexibility and access.”

The company has customers in 20 countries.

After a gruesome 12-16 months, the travel sector is just slowly reverting to its normal pre-Covid19 state. Prior to the second wave, most of the companies were beginning to achieve figures similar to the ones they acquired before FY2021. For instance, EaseMyTrip’s cofounder Prashant Pitti told Inc42 that the company had achieved 70% recovery in the third quarter of the financial year 2021 (between October and December 2020). This trend could also be observed in various other companies as well. 

Pathfndr is the business model pivot of MeTripping Technologies Private Limited during the pandemic. MeTripping started as a B2C company and when the solution saw interest from large travel agencies, it partnered with some of the largest travel companies for intelligent travel solutions.