Google's Rajan Anandan invests in Lankan travel startup Trekurious

Sri Lanka-based travel portal Trekurious.com has secured first round of funding from Blue Ocean Ventures, promoted by Google India MD Rajan Anandan, and the Lankan Angel Network.

Founded by Rukmankan Sivaloganathan and Dilendra Wimalasekere, Trekurious.com provides travellers a unique experience of dining with sports stars and celebrities. Its service is currently available only in Sri Lanka but the portal is now looking to expand to other parts of Asia, including India. Some of the packages of the company, launched on the sidelines of the T20 World 2012, were hosted by noted Sri Lankan cricketers Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara, and Muttiah Muralidaran.

The travel startup had come third in a VC competition held recently by the Indian Angel Network and Blue Ocean Ventures.

Rukmankan Sivaloganathan, CEO,  Trekurious, said, "The experiential travel market has enormous potential in Asia and we are confident, with the backing we have from a solid team of investors, of successfully scaling quickly into more markets to take advantage of this. "

In April 2011, Gurgaon-based travel portal Yatra.com raised Rs 200 crore from blue chip investors including Valiant Capital Management, Norwest Venture Partners and Intel Capital. In the same period, another travel portal based in Mumbai, Cleartrip, secured $40 million from Concur Technologies. It is considered to be the single largest private investment in an Indian online travel startup till date.

A super angel and mentor, Sri-Lankan-born Rajan Anandan has invested in about 20 Indian startups operating in the field of software, Internet and mobile. Anandan first investment was in 2006 in a Chandigarh-based education services startup, wiziq.com.

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)