Cleartrip, India’s leading online travel agency received $18.5 million, making this the largest round of venture funding in 2008 – according to India Venture Capital Report. The company has raised a total of $30.2 million over the past three years.
Speaking on the findings of the report, Sandeep Murthy CEO – Cleartrip said, “While we have known that customers love our service as evidenced by a 70% repeat transaction rate, this recent round of funding shows that investors’ also value the our unique focus on making travel simple through unique deals and great customer service. We are confident that this new round of funding will enable us to create even stronger propositions and set new standards in service, which will collectively drive us to profitability by the end of this calendar year.”
India’s travel portals have received a flurry of investments over the past two years, but Cleartrip stands out as the only company in this space to have successfully secured world class investors such as Sherpalo, Kleiner Perkins and Draper Fisher. These investors have collectively created billions of dollars in market capitalization by helping to build businesses such as Google, Amazon, skype and many others. With this pedigree of investors Cleartrip customers can rest assured that the company is backed by investors and a management team that believes that the best businesses are those that put the customer first.
The online travel industry in India was estimated at $2 billion in revenues (the value of transactions as opposed to the earnings of travel firms) in 2007 and is expected to grow to $6 billion in 2010, according to travel research group Eye For Travel. More importantly, investors are banking on exponential future growth once the use of the Internet increases, the number of first- and second-time travelers goes up with more disposable income, airport infrastructure improves and more hotels come on the scene to address the excess demand.
Source: Money Control