Travelguru January 12, 2007
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Travel , 1 comment so farAllright, maybe I was a bit carried away with MakeMyTrip’s recent recent $18 million second-round of funding. Seems like there are multiple bets being placed by VC’s.
Travelguru is another online travel portal in India that won a commitment of $15 million (from Battery Ventures and Sequoia Capital India) for its second round of funding in November 2006. The first round fetched them $10 million.
Like it’s competitors, Travelguru shows no modesty in numbers posted on thier website (72,000 hotel, 500 airline partners… yeah, right…) Travelguru claims to the biggest ‘hotel consolidator’ in india. Who knows, they may be speaking the truth. Only time will tell.
OkTaTaByeBye January 12, 2007
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Travel , 3commentsOkTaTaByeBye (love the name 
) claims to be India’s first online travel community. They are driven by one of the major indian travel sites MakeMyTrip.com (I’ve written about them here). The idea is to get collective opinions and reviews (and maybe drive traffic to the parent website).
The concept is neat, presentation is cool. I like the smart graphics (main banner has two side view mirrors that look like ones on Tata trucks) and images (check the one at bottom of homepage - funny one-liner written behind commercial autos in India).
Hey, whatever the motive- the site is cool. And it may turn out to be useful gradually, as the user/community generated content grows.
Update: (13 April’07) Heard from a senior official at OkTaTaByeBye that the site is relaunched today with a new look and functionality. The site now offers it’s members messaging, hotel reviews, IE toolbar, rewards program, etc.
The homepage crams bit more info than it should, but the site is still way better than the herds of indistinguishable community-based Indian websites. The Tata-truck style rear-view mirrors on the banner now have a realistic scene of Indian driving, and look even better than before. Good job!
MakeMyTrip January 12, 2007
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Travel , 2commentsMakeMyTrip.com has been called india’s premier travel portal. It offers the entire gamut: discount airfares, hotels, cars (you would think rental cars in india?? But before you get all worked up, know that it’s with ‘driver included’. Again, indians pave the way for a new concept :)), vacation packages, maps etc. The site is not solely india-focused though. It’s founder and CEO Deep Kalra gave few insights during podcast with IndiaTech.
He worked with GE Finance before this gig and founded the site in 2000. It wasnt his intention to focus on indian market, they started out with more of the US-India bookings in mind. In December 2006, the company has raised $13 million in second round of funding (first one was $10 million) making it the most funded indian travel website. Deep projects the gross bookings on makemytrip.com to cross $125 million by March this year.
Impressive. I think makemytrip is one website to look out for- it’s certainly not the only one in the space (Travelguru, Cleartrip, Yatra are others) but it’s got the momentum.