Reputation Manager RepUp Raises Funding

Gurgaon-based online reputation management startup, RepUp, has raised an undisclosed round of funding from Indian Angel Network (IAN).

IAN’s Sanjay Mehta, Keshav Murugesh and Apurva Parekh have led this round of investment and Sanjay Mehta would be joining the board of the company for helping the team with strategic decisions.

Founded in December 2014 by Pranjal Prashar, RepUp, is an ORM product startup for hospitality businesses. It provides one-stop solution for hotels to maintain and enhance their brand value on review sites and online platforms.

Rapidly increasing consumer traffic in online hotel booking, and the tremendous growth in the sector, have demolished any scope of monopoly and the hospitality sector has been thrown wide open. Reputation, in the presence of a plethora of choices has become absolutely crucial. Reputation is made or broke by customers and reviewers with their feedbacks and reviews. Such reviews and feedbacks have flooded the internet and new customers largely make their decisions based on what they read. This is where RepUp comes in. It uses a patent pending algorithm to improve the reputation which leads to increase in bookings. Based on social media and review platforms, the startup also helps hoteliers leverage their growth based on the feedbacks. RepUp’s ‘Review’ and ‘Price’ widgets, have helped hoteliers increase their revenue anywhere between 22% to 26%.

The current funding will be used for acquiring customers from Hotel industry in India and to explore of South East Asian market.

Speaking on this development, Pranjal Prashar, co-founder & CEO of RepUp, said “Hospitality industry is going through a fast transition and customer expectation and behaviour is changing rapidly. 3.5 Mn Indian Internet users (35 lakh) booked a hotel online in 2014, which will increase to 8.4 Mn (84 lakhs) by the time 2016 ends. RepUp aims to solve the online reputation management challenges using technology that can be scaled globally.”

The Indian hotel industry is worth $230 Bn and is growing at the rate of 12.2% per year. Add to it the fact that consumer confidence on online hotel bookings is on the rise. According to Google’s latest search, an estimated 8.4 Mn Indians are likely to book hotels online by 2016. The online hotel booking Industry will be worth $1.8 Bn from the current $0.8 Bn.

In the coming year, RepUp aims to onboard 500 hotels, build partnership with Online Travel Agencies’ (OTA’s) & review portals and explore other geographies.

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