WAH Holidays Pvt. Ltd, which operates online travel marketplace WeAreHolidays, has raised an undisclosed amount in its Series B round led by Urrshila Kerkar, a director on the board of Cox & Kings Ltd.
Kerkar, who made the investment in her personal capacity, has bought out the existing shareholders to gain a majority stake in WeAreHolidays, the company said in a statement.
She now owns about 50% of the company, a person close to the development told VCCircle.
The firm is backed by prominent angel investors such as Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma, People Interactive’s Anupam Mittal, GSF’s Rajesh Sawhney, and MakeMyTrip’s Sachin Bhatia. The company raised seed investment from Blume Ventures, Mumbai Angels, Bhatia and Sawhney. In 2014, the company raised its Series A round from Matrix Partners India.
In an interaction with VCCircle, WeAreHolidays CEO Deepak Wadhwa said the company's existing investors have made decent returns. He declined to divulge any details.
“Our cost of acquisition goes down dramatically and this investment will open up a lot of partnership opportunities for us across the globe,†Wadhwa added.
WeAreHolidays was co-founded by Wadhwa (CEO), Harkirat Singh and Mohit Piplani in 2012. The company, which employs 15 people, will focus on the social aspect of travel and will re-launch its BIA app on the App Store. The app will help people record trips while travelling and will serve as a one-stop concierge platform for travellers to search for information, upload vouchers and get shopping deals on their mobile. The app will have an offline feature that will allow users to continue to capture their trip even when network connectivity fails.
“The next phase of our growth is going to be centered around mobile. With affordable data plans available at holiday destinations, mobile has become the default and only choice for travellers to manage their travel bookings, shop, click pictures and stay connected socially,’’ Wadhwa added.
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