Bengaluru-based traveltech startup OnArrival on Monday said it has raised pre-seed funding of $175,000 (around Rs 1.42 crore) from Antler India.
The fresh funds will be deployed for hiring across sales and technology teams.
OnArrival was founded by Ankit Sawant and Pawan Shetty in 2022. It aims to address gaps in customer experience by bringing 20 ancillary travel services onto one platform via its proprietary application programming interface (APIs). This enables sellers like online travel agencies (OTAs) or any other travel booking avenue to offer these services to their customers through a single interface.
"Just like in the airline industry, ancillaries are responsible for all the profitability. We are here to help these business-to-business (B2B) customers serve their end users much more, resulting in a healthier bottom line,” said Sawant.
“It is our conviction that travel will continue to boom, and its future will be about more seamless and connected experiences. An API business like OnArrival has the potential for tremendous value-creation for customers and sellers, with technology moats and network effects,” said Nitin Sharma, partner at Antler India.
Antler India is an early stage venture capital fund managed by Antler. It has invested in startups across sectors such as Web3, fintech, software-as-a-service (SaaS), edtech, ecommerce, mobility, HRtech, social and community, among others.
The VC firm writes cheques of $300,000-$500,000 on average and partners with angels and early-stage backers for bigger cheque sizes.
Last week, Antler India led the $270,000 (around Rs 2.2 crore) in a pre-seed funding round of femtech platform Salad.
In 2021, Antler had raised $300 million for its global fund. In an interaction with VCCircle, the firm had said that it plans to deploy $100-$150 million in Indian startups over the next three years.
