Travelyaari raises $7 mn from BCCL, GVFL

Online bus booking platform Travelyaari has raised $7 million in its Series B round led by Gujarat Venture Finance Ltd (GVFL), Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd (BCCL) and other investors.

The fresh capital will be used for product development as well as business growth. Travelyaari is looking to integrate more than 500 bus providers with the platform after the fund raise, the company said in a press statement.

Operated by Mantis Technologies Pvt Ltd, Travelyaari had raised $3 million in its Series A investment from GVFL in June this year. It was founded in 2007 by Aurvind Lama, Prateek Nigam, and Parthasarathi Sinha.

"We will be looking to utilise this fresh induction of capital to further strengthen our B2B & B2C offerings and to achieve greater business growth," said Lama, CEO of Travelyaari.

Mantis Technologies also runs BusCRS, which provides ERP solutions to bus operators. The company claims to have 2000 bus operators as its clients for its B2B platform.

"In 2011, travel e-commerce had the biggest share in Indian e-com market due to an increase in air and train ticket sold online. We believe that bus tickets are no different and customers would like to buy them on-the-go as well," said Sankalp Bajpai, spokesperson of GVFL.

At present, diversified companies such as Goibibo, Yatra, and MakeMyTrip dominate the online bus ticket booking segment. Recently, Goibibo Group-owned Redbus entered the Latin American market by acquiring a majority stake in Peru-based bus ticketing platform Busportal.

In October last year, bus ticket platform AbhiBus raised investment fromOne97 Communications Ltd, which runs a mobile wallet and e-commerce marketplace under the Paytm brand.

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