BCCL, GVFL lead $7m round for India's Travelyaari

Additional unnamed investors also participated in the round, which follows a $3 million Series A from GVFL in June; the firm previously invested an undisclosed amount in Travelyaari's parent Mantis Technologies in 2011. Travelyaari will use the new capital for product development and business growth. It plans to add 500 more bus providers to the platform following the Series B round.

Currently India's online bus booking market is dominated by generalist travel platforms such as MakeMyTrip, a publicly listed company that received a $180 million investment from China's Ctrip earlier this year, and Yatra Online, which agreed a backdoor listing in the US in July. Travelyaari hopes to provide a better customer experience by concentrating on bus tickets and targeting a middle-class customer base.

In addition to its customer-facing operations, Travelyaari helps state-run transport corporations PRTC and Punjab Roadways with their technology backend, and is in talks to extend its service to others. Mantis also operates business management platform BusCRS, which claims to have over 2,000 bus operators as clients.

Founded in 1990, GVFL provides financial and managerial support to entrepreneurs in high growth and tech-oriented companies. It has been investing from its INR10 billion ($149 million) Golden Gujarat Growth Fund 1, which launched in 2011. In 2014 the firm also launched a $1 billion fund targeting Japanese enterprises in Gujarat.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Technology
• Consumer
• Early-stage
• India
• TMT
• Transportation
• Venture