Yatra appoints former Trulia CFO Sean Aggarwal as director

Yatra Online Inc, the operator of travel portal Yatra.com, announced on Thursday that it had appointed Sean Aggarwal, former chief financial officer of US-based online real estate firm Trulia, to its board of directors.

Aggarwal, who is of Indian origin, is also a director at US-based cab-hailing app Lyft.

"Sean is a Silicon Valley leader and his capital markets experience and strategic insights into the consumer tech segment will be invaluable to Yatra as we continue to expand our reach and customer base in both consumer and corporate travel markets in India," said Dhruv Shringi, Yatra's chief executive and co-founder.

Before Trulia, Aggarwal had worked with Paypal, eBay, Amazon, PepsiCo and Merrill Lynch Investment Banking. 

He holds an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

In October, Promod Haque, senior managing partner at venture capital fund Norwest Venture Partners, had resigned from the board of directors of the Nasdaq-listed firm. 

Haque had been a non-executive member of Yatra’s board since July 2006.

Yatra was founded in 2006 by former Ebookers Group (UK) executives Shringi, Manish Amin and Sabina Chopra. Amin is chief information officer and Chopra is executive vice president of operations.

The company is backed by a string of venture capital, private equity and strategic investors. 

In October last year, it sold a small stake to Reliance Industries Ltd as part of a deal linked to an existing partnership where Reliance pre-installed the Yatra mobile app in its LYF-branded 4G handsets.

In September, the company raised $15.4 million (Rs 100 crore) in venture debt from InnoVen Capital India Pvt. Ltd.

Two months before that, media conglomerate Bennett Coleman and Co Ltd had sold its equity-convertible warrants in Yatra Online, Inc. for Rs 39 crore.

In July 2016, Yatra had inked a reverse-merger agreement with US-based Nasdaq-listed special purpose acquisition form Terrapin 3 Acquisition Corp, paving the way for a back-door listing of the second Indian online travel agency in the US after rival MakeMyTrip.

Late last month, Yatra reported a 45.6% increase in net revenue for the quarter ended 31 December 2017 but its adjusted operating loss widened. 

Revenue after excluding service costs, or net revenue, for the October-December quarter increased to Rs 195.8 crore from Rs 134.5 crore a year earlier, the online travel services provider said in a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company’s revenue from the air ticketing business increased 46% from a year earlier to Rs 137 crore, thanks to higher bookings after it acquired corporate travel services provider Air Travel Bureau Ltd (ATB) in July last year. Net revenue from the hotels and packages business jumped 47% to Rs 43.7 crore.

However, the online travel services provider’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) loss expanded to Rs 38.8 crore from Rs 18.7 crore a year earlier.