Holiday Comparison Site Polama Raises Rs 1.5Cr In Angel Funding

Bangalore-based holiday comparison site Polama.com has raised Rs 1.5 crore from a consortium of angel investors, led by Rehan Yar Khan and Blume Ventures, according to a company statement. Although a member of the Indian Angel Network, Khan has made the investment in his personal capacity. Blume Ventures is an angel and seed venture fund that backs start-ups with both funding and mentoring. The fund raised will be used to build operations, customer service and marketing operations, MD Ramaswami, co-founder of Polama, said. "The Polama team has married its passion for travel with deep technical background and identified the gaps in customer preferences and demand. These are important issues as the first-generation online travel pursuits mature to open up more interesting niches. Blume is excited to be associated with the team," said Karthik Reddy, managing director of Blume Ventures. Incorporated in December 2010, Polama is the brainchild of two classmates – Dilip Panicker and MD Ramaswami – who are avid travellers themselves. Polama was conceived when both decided to leverage their strong technical background to build a portal that would help Net surfers search and compare holiday options without the least hassle. Polama features more than 5000 holiday packages from several branded providers, such as SOTC, Travel Tours, Thrillophilia, Yatra and MakeMyTrip. Users can save time, efforts and costs by using Polama services to find the holiday deals that best suit their needs. The filtering process is based on price, number of days, affiliates, user interests and specific destinations, to name a few criteria. The site also provides an advanced search option where one can specify price range, number of days, holiday interests and so on. "We are excited to bring the new investors on board. Their expertise will hugely contribute to our journey to the next level," said Ramaswami.