The State of Online Travel Startups in India

Online travel booking has been one of the big success stories in India.

It is one of the sectors where online e-commerce first worked in a nascent Internet market, as the emerging country started using credit card payments in a big way over the last decade and other alternative and hybrid payments system (like cash-on-delivery) took off.

Almost 200 online travel companies, both large OTAs and startups, now function in India, according to a recent data compilation on the Indian online travel and startup market by Traxcn, a venture capital deals and company information tracking service.

Traxn reveals a number of interesting statistics and a great overview of the sector in India, and shows the still-early potential of the market — especially as mobile booking becomes lot earlier. Mobile, of course, is the predominant method of Internet access in India, and is the world’s second largest mobile market after China. As apps become more common (Android is the biggest smartphone platform in India) and payment systems become more seamless, lots of formalization of the until recently unorganized sector will come in, and fast.

The largest online travel agency MakeMyTrip is now offering coupons and discounts to users who book through its app, as a way of seeding the market.

Almost $300 million has been invested in 40 travel startups over the year in India, according to Traxcn. The majority of it in online booking (OTAs and alternative accommodation booking) space. Of this, $55 million was invested in 2014 and $71 million of it invested in 2015 already across three big deals this year so far.

This is how the money invested splits among various travel segments in India:

And the active investors in Indian online travel market:

• Blume Ventures : Tripvillas, WeAreHolidays, RailYatri, AudioCompass, Hotelogix
• Helion Venture Partners: MakeMyTrip, RedBus, MyGola
• SAIF Partners : MakeMyTrip, Ixigo, TravelTriangle
• SeedFund : RedBus, V Resorts, AxisRooms
• Matrix Partners : StayZilla, WeAreHolidays
• Accel Partners : HolidayIQ, Hotelogix
• Sequoia Capital : OYO Rooms, TravelGuru
• TA Ventures : GuideTrip, Tushky

Also included in the presentation below is a great summary of all the major travel startups in India and the global comparable startups for each of these, if they exist.

The full presentation is well worth reading in full.