Rodeo Travel Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which offers online ticket booking services through its Railofy app, has extended its seed funding round by raising Rs 4 crore ($540,000 at current exchange rates) from a clutch of investors.
The company raised the additional seed capital from Roots Ventures, Astarc Ventures and Better Capital, Railofy said in a statement. This takes the total capital raised by the company in the seed round to Rs 11 crore.
“Railofy, with its data-driven approach of underwriting and offering a unique solution to passengers in a large travel market in India, is a startup ready to disrupt the travel insurance segment,” Roots Ventures partner Ravinder Vashist said.
In September, Railofy said it had raised Rs 7 crore from venture capital firm Chiratae Ventures. That came after VCCircle in April reported that Chiratae, which has also backed other travel-technology companies including Yatra and Tripoto, had invested in Railofy.
At the time, the company said that it would use the capital to expand its presence across India.
Railofy has also brought on board two mentors—former GoAir revenue head Anand Srinivasan and Sunil Kumar, former joint general manager (portals) at state-run IRCTC Ltd.
The startup was launched last year by Rohan Dedhia, Hrishabh Sanghvi and Vaibhav Saraf. Dedhia is an alumnus of the Indian School of Business and has previously worked at KPMG and JPMorgan. Sanghvi is an IIM-Lucknow alumnus and has worked at Edelweiss Securities in the past. Saraf is an IIT-Bombay graduate and worked at Deloitte before becoming an entrepreneur.
The startup provides a travel guarantee and alternative travel options at price points close to railway ticket fares. The passengers can buy the guarantee for a fee if their train tickets are not confirmed or waitlisted. If their tickets get confirmed, they can travel by train. If not, Railofy provides them an option to purchase flight tickets at a pre-agreed price. Railofy started trials for select trains originating from Mumbai in January.
India’s online train ticketing market is dominated by state-run Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corp. It is the largest e-commerce company in India by number of transactions. IRCTC, which caters to the world’s fourth-biggest rail network, made a stellar debut on stock exchanges last October.
