Tripshelf has raised INR 1.6 crores in a Pre-Series A round of funding from GEMS Advisory and early stage VC fund from Quarizon. Tripshelf is an online travel market place that allows users to discover, compare and buy the most suited holiday packages from independent tour operators on one platform.
Tripshelf was born out of the need to bring a single online platform for users to compare holiday packages, instead of visiting multiple individual sites. The Indian travel market is estimated to be at USD 24 Bn, of this, USD 5.7 Bn is in the holiday packages market.
With the shift of many first time travellers planning trips to national and international destinations, the leisure travel holiday market is growing at a very fast pace. Hence, there is a high requirement of expertise for selecting packages and making other decisions. Along with this, the segment also involves high purchase value and repeat decisions making it imperative for a proposition of comparative viewing with ease of booking to be introduced.
Aditya Gupta, Chairman at Quarizon and GEMS Advisory believes that individual products like flights, hotels etc, are well handled by Online Travel Agents (OTAs) but says that “There is a dire need of an organized platform for discovery and comparison of complex package holidays, and on categories other than price.”
According to the Tripshelf, aggregating offline and online travel operators provides for a better planning experience for users. In a statement released, CEO, Dhruv Raj Gupta said that having GEMS and Quarizon on board would bring them strong mentorship in the domain and further added that “as an immediate next step, we would be launching a mobile app for our users.”
