Travel portal Pickyourtrail has raised $3 million in a Series A funding round, the company said on Monday. Participants in the funding round included Kumar Vembu, co-founder, GoFrugal, Shyam Sekhar, founder of iThought, and Freshdesk’s co-founder Girish Mathrubootham.
The Chennai-based startup, which has about 10,000 travellers on board, will use “a major chunk of this fund” for brand building. While most of its bookings come from New Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, tier 2 cities including Kochi and Salem also pull in travellers.
“Our major focus is on performance marketing and customer acquisition in a meaningful way,” said Srinath Shankarnarayanan, Pickyourtrail’s co-founder, in an interview. The funds will also be used for product innovation and expanding the technology team.
Unlike other travel portals, which also cater to group bookings and corporate travel, the platform is focussed on providing services to solo travellers.
Founded in 2014 by Hari Ganapathy and Shankarnarayanan, the travel portal plans complete itineraries for travellers based on their preferences. The platform also gives real-time suggestions about flight timings, weather updates, cafes, restaurants and places to visit using data points while a person is travelling. Factors such as duration, travel time and ratings are used to build personalized itineraries and real-time recommendations.
“Personalisation is a mantra that’s been around in travel. I believe that our algorithms across personalisation, routing and price matching are an industry-first in their approach and output. Our end-goal is to make Pickyourtrail synonymous with customized international vacations and this round is a great stepping stone in that direction,” said Shankarnarayanan.
The portal competes with established players like Thomas Cook in the integrated travel space and with websites including MakeMyTrip and Yatra.com in the travel booking space.
Source: Mint