Holiday marketplace TravelTriangle raises $3 mn in venture debt

TravelTriangle, an online marketplace for holiday packages, said on Wednesday that it has raised $3 million (around Rs 22 crore at current exchange rates) in venture debt from InnoVen Capital.

“The funding acquired from InnoVen and our other esteemed investors will be directed to meet the pressing expansionary demands for the organisation, and strengthening our outbound-based operations,” said TravelTriangle co-founder and chief executive officer Sankalp Agarwal.

In 2015, the startup had raised $1.25 million from InnoVen Capital.

Founded in 2010 by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) alumni Sankalp Agarwal, Sanchit Garg, and Prabhat Gupta, TravelTriangle lets customers connect with local travel agents through its platform.

Operated by Holiday Triangle Travel Pvt. Ltd, TravelTriangle offers a SaaS-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform for travel agents to manage and analyse customer interactions and draw insights to improve customer retention and drive sales growth. SaaS stands for software as a service.

The portal presently covers over 15 countries and more than 65 destinations. 

“The company has showcased growth coupled with healthy and positive unit economics,” said Punit Shah, director at InnoVen Capital India. “It has demonstrated a strong ‘say-do' ratio since our first investment in 2015 and is well on its way of encompassing all the components of holiday ecosystem through its highly innovative and technology-focussed product.”

Earlier this year, TravelTriangle had raised $12 million in a Series C round of funding led by growth-capital firm Fundamentum Partnership, which was floated by Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani and Helion Ventures co-founder Sanjeev Aggarwal.

The company had raised $10 million in a Series B round led by Singapore-based RB Investments in February last year. Existing investors also participated in that round.

In July 2014, it had secured a pre-Series A investment of $1.7 million from SAIF Partners. In April 2015, it got Series A financing worth $8 million from Bessemer Venture Partners.

TravelTriangle operates in the online travel segment dominated by MakeMyTrip, Cleartrip, Yatra, and others. 

In 2016, in the biggest-ever consolidation move in the online travel space in India, Nasdaq-listed MakeMyTrip agreed to buy Ibibo Group, co-owned by South African technology group Naspers Ltd and Chinese investment firm Tencent, in a stock deal.

InnoVen Capital

Singapore’s state-owned investment firm Temasek and Singapore-based lender UOB had acquired Nasdaq-listed diversified financial services company SVB Financial Group’s specialty finance business focussed on venture debt in early 2015. 

SVB India Finance was then renamed as Innoven Capital Group.

The venture debt firm typically invests at the Series A level in early-stage startups and also mentors them.

OYO Rooms, Swiggy, Byju’s, NestAway, Pepperfry, Prizm Payments, Shaadi.com, ShopClues, and Myntra are some of its prominent portfolio companies.

The firm is also known for the largest venture debt deal in the country, when in September last year, it put $15.4 million (Rs 100 crore then) in Nasdaq-listed Yatra Online, Inc.

Between January and June this year, InnoVen Capital committed funding worth Rs 418 crore, of which it disbursed Rs 300 crore.

Its most recent deals include online drugstore PharmEasy , children-focussed education startup Flinto and executive education firm Eruditus. 

Apart from InnoVen Capital, Delhi’s Trifecta Capital Advisors, Bengaluru-based Capital Float, IFMR Capital of Chennai and Ahmedabad-based Lendingkart are leading players offering debt funding to early-stage companies in India.