Well if you thought that you had seen the last of funding in the already overcrowded online travel space then think again. Via which was earlier flightraja has been reported to have landed a funding of 10 million $ from blue blooded VC’s Sequoia capital. Sequoia Capital had earlier funded the likes of Travelguru which was later acquired by Travelocity.
This is Via’s second round of funding as its earlier round was raised in 2007 at $5 million from NEA-IndoUS Ventures. Travel portals have been the biggest grossers of funding in the digital space with more of them raising double digital million dollar funding in the last few years. They have also been under severe pressure due to several issues ranging from Airlines cutting agents commission to airlines launching their own travel site and travel aggregators springing up to eat a piece of their pie.
The silver lining has been the lone exit in travelguru which was acquired by Travelocity. So this funding does come as a fresh breathe of confidence back into the online travel space. As we saw in 2009 a lot of OTA’s were moving towards non air businesses like train and bus ticketing for alternate revenues and also to decentralize their revenue dependence on air ticketing.
Traveling is the most growing industry in India, and in my opinion it is not that much crowded yet.
Travelguru is the sliver lining? After raising over $20 million, it was sold for a piddling $9 million after months of emergency cash flow support from Sequoia before the deal was final. The deal was a fire sale, nothing more and nothing less.
Please do some investigative journalism before spewing your opinion about so-called silver linings.
@vinay – An exit is an exit. And though distress this atleast was proof that there are buyers for Indian OTA’s out there. After all the commission cuts and cut throat competition a sale is definitely a silver lining.
for TravelGuru,something is better than nothing. but if your business model is correct, than there are many travel companies who are doing good beside commission cuts and all, so for them travelguru sale is just a forced exit.