Ok i thought the phase when travel portals were getting funding was over! But i was terribly wrong.. It seems that travel is the most funded (see list below) and the most competitive segment in the online space.
The first round of funding that happened for players in this space is as follows
- Yatra Online ($5 million) – Reliance Capital, Norwest VC, TV18
- Cleartrip.com ($3 million) – KPCB, Sherpalo
- Travelguru ($10 million) – WestBridge Capital
- Makemytrip ($10 million) – SAIF Capital Partners
Many of the above players have raised more capital in the second round as well.
So the newest travel ecommerce site to recieve funding is FlightRaja (Via) which has just been funded for 5 million $ by US-based venture capital firm NEA’s India fund – NEA Indo US Ventures.
The funding puts Flightraja in direct competition (in terms of money muscle power) with Yatra.com, travelguru.com, cleartrip.com and makemytrip.com.
I see a consolidation waiting to happen in the travel space. I wont be surprised it Makemytrip.com which is kind of the big daddy (with huge revenues to boast of) tries to buy out another trave portal. It will be very interesting to see how this space pans out going forward.
Related news – Exclusive Interview with iXigo – A Travel search engine.
This is in reference with my recent experience with Flight Raja, During reconciliation of transactions for my credit card statements at the end of financial year, I found many transactions were not executed by me. The statement was showing charges as “FLIGHTRAJA”. While contacting Flight Raja, I found the details about the transactions. It was showing the details of passengers, out of which none of them is executed by me or any of the transactions showing my name.
I contact my bank regarding the matter above, they suggests me to contact Flight Raja directly as the transactions was executed at Flight Raja.
Further I contacted M/s Flight Raja Travels Pvt. Ltd. several times last month, but there is no response to my communications at all.
While talking to Manager, he straight away told me that we are doing Business and we are not responsible for your credit card being misuse on our site. If you would like to get refund for your transactions contact your Bank.
This means that this company is cheating and beware of using your credit card on such sites!!!