SaaS platform for hotels BookingJini raises seed round from Mumbai Angels

Bhubaneswar-based BookingJini, which helps hotels increase direct bookings on their websites, has raised Rs 3 crores in a seed round from angel investment network Mumbai Angels Network.

The angel network said in a statement that 18 investors across its chapters participated in this round. The deal was led by Apurva Salarpuria, director of real estate firm Salarpuria Group.

“Bookingjini has the potential to change the way small and medium sized hotels do business in the future,” Salarpuria said.

Bookingjini was founded by Sibasish Mishra in 2017. The software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup uses marketing automation and experience engine to help hoteliers maximize their revenues from online direct booking and reduce cost of acquisition. Bookingjini offers hoteliers a complete hotel operating system that includes website, hosting and maintenance services, content, single channel manager for all OTA accounts, chatbot, and a cloud-based central reservation software.

The company claims to have served 1200 hotels so far.

“We can see a growing trend of investments in startups that are powering the India growth story and seeing a Tier 2 city startup performing competitively against a Mumbai or Delhi startup shows the capability," Nandini Mansinghka, CEO and co-founder of Mumbai Angels Network said.

Established in 2006, Mumbai Angels has over 400 members spread across eight chapters - Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Goa, Pune and Jaipur. It claims to have invested over Rs 150 crore in over 135 startups so far, with more than 30 exits.

In 2017-18, Mumbai Angels was ranked second in terms of investments by angel networks by investing in 12 startups. Delhi-based Indian Angel Network had topped the list during the year by adding 40 startups to its portfolio.