TravClan Secures Funding To Help Travel Agents Build And Grow Business Online

B2B travel tech startup TravClan has raised $4.7 Mn as part of the Pre-Series A funding round led by Hashed Emergent Fund and global marquee angel investors. 

TravClan’s angel investors include Nick Talwar (CEO of Circle Up), Aayush Phumbra (former cofounder of Chegg), Travis Katz (former cofounder of Trip.com), Pritesh Gupta (former cofounder of Zipgo), and Vikram Chopra and Mehul Agrawal (cofounders of Cars24), according to a press statement.

The capital raised will allow the startup to double down its investment in product and technology as it looks to scale ten times over the next year, the statement said. 

The Delhi-based travel startup raised $2.2 Mn in a Pre-Series A round in July 2021 from TheVentures, a Korea and Singapore-based venture capital firm, and Leo Capital led the investment round, along with other global and marquee angel investors.

TravClan has raised $5.7 Mn in total funding since its inception in October 2018, Arun Bagaria, cofounder, TravClan, told Inc42. 

Founded by Arun Bagaria, Chirag Agrawal, Ashish Thapliyal, TravClan empowers travel agents and new-age travel entrepreneurs to build and grow travel business online by setting up websites in 30 seconds and selling products digitally. 

The founders have previously worked in key leadership roles at Oyo, Travel Triangle and Cars24.

TravClan has grown nearly twenty times during the pandemic years and is looking to clock a $100 Mn GMV in this quarter with a positive contribution margin, it claims. 

“Offline travel agents sell $500 Bn+ travel every year. Covid has accelerated the need and demand from travel agents to digitise their operations. Our platform is enabling travel companies to rebuild their business faster and earn a better livelihood by generating more demand. Our tech-first approach on solving challenges faced by travel businesses has allowed us to build a highly capital efficient business with a small team,” said Bagaria. 

TravClan has expanded its presence in eight cities in India, Dubai and Singapore and plans to launch operations in the US and Southeast countries over the next 12 months, it said. 

The startup provides marketing tools that help its users generate more demand from social media, and earn more profit by booking flights, hotels, holidays with suppliers across the world at the best prices.

TravClan bridges the gap of finding reliable suppliers and effective payments and credit solutions. It claims to have enabled 15,000 travel agents to grow their travel business.

The startup said, its vision is to empower SMBs in the travel sector across the world to grow their business and enable GMV of over $10 Bn by 2025, it said. 

Travel, tourism and hospitality sectors have suffered the most in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic for more than two years now. About 21.5 Mn jobs were lost in the tourism sector alone due to the pandemic, the government has admitted in the Lok Sabha in March 2022. 

The country has so far seen three waves and is on the verge of witnessing the fourth wave with Covid cases rising day-by-day. So, it is not fair to make any predictions at this point.

Moreover, many travel tech startups have either asked their employees to take voluntary resignation from companies or take salary cuts to fight the pandemic-induced slowdown in the past two years. 

For instance, in 2020 Bengaluru-based budget hotel chain Treebo asked its employees to take voluntary resignations to fight the pandemic. 

In the same year, MakeMyTrip founder Deep Kalra and CEO Rajesh Magow with the senior leadership took pay cuts while a few employees are also said to have been laid off during the pandemic.

Online travel aggregator ixigo offered voluntary pay cuts to employees on the basis of their income while founders have also taken a pay cut amid pandemic. The startup later resumed full payments of its employees from July 2020. The travel platform has now bounced back last year, generating revenue and getting SEBI approval for INR1600 Cr IPO debut.