Mystifly, which offers payment processing and airline inventory management software to both online and offline travel aggregators, has raised $3.3 million in its pre-Series B round led by Japan-based Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd.
The ten-year-old, Bengaluru-based startup which offers its software to businesses using a SaaS model plans to raise an additional $30 million in equity financing in a Series B round within the next few quarters, Mystifly’s co-founder Rajeev Kumar said in an interview.
The startup also has an office in Singapore, with around 140 employees.
Currently, Mystifly offers SaaS solutions to automate airline ticketing distribution, fulfilment and payments technology for both offline travel agents and online travel aggregators (OTAs).
Airline ticketing and fulfilment is a cumbersome process, especially for OTAs and offline agents who work with budget carriers. Airlines such as Indigo, GoAir operate with OTAs using a wallet model for bookings. OTAs deposit a chunk of cash in the airlines’ wallet, and process air tickets on the basis of this outstanding balance with each operator.
During the lockdown in the country, several flight tickets were cancelled by default by airline operators, but these refunds also ended up in the semi-closed wallets owned by travel agents’ OTAs.
Kumar said both refunds and payment settlements for successful bookings are credited into the travel agent’s or the OTA’s account typically after every 20 days. Mystifly’s product helps shorten the payment settlement cycle to within 24 hours.
“We work with a combination of small and large airlines globally and we also wholesale supply networks who provide us with airfare inventory in bulk. But today as we grow, we are partnering directly with airline operators instead, and enabling a far higher retailing capability for airline brands with our tools, when compared to their existing capability,” Kumar said.
The fresh investment will help Mystifly strengthen its product and technology, data science & machine learning capabilities and address airline payments inefficiency.
Kumar said Mystifly reported profits in the last fiscal, and that the startup initially didn’t raise any external funds in the first six years of operations. Mystifly’s previous fundraise was reported in 2016 when it had raised $5 million from Recruit Holdings group.
“Ever since out first fundraising in 2016, we have been a profitable business and while we scaled we didn’t do multiple fundraisers and focused only on profitable growth. At the time of the first funding we were doing just 800 transactions a day, we have now scaled that to around 12,500 transactions a day,”he added.
