BANGALORE:
Shorebird Technologies, the makers of Tripeur, the 3rd generation, end- to-end Corporate Travel Management platform, co-founded by Thiagarajan Rajagopalan and Sajit Chacko raises $600,000 in the pre-series A round of funding, led by Japan-based Incubate Fund.
Angel investors from the company’s seed round such as Rajul Garg also participated in this round. Tripeur is an end-to-end corporate travel management platform that uses advanced Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning algorithms to drive efficiency, ease of use and customization for business travel by employees and executives alike.
The funds raised in the seed round (earlier in Q4, 2016) were used to prove Tripeur’s platform capabilities and adoption by the market. The milestones set at the seed stage were met 6 months early by the company, which led to pre-series A raise and closure.
The pre-series A fund will be used primarily for building the Technology, Sales and Marketing teams of the company.
Commercially launched in June, 2016, Tripeur has already been adopted by over 40 medium and large enterprises including DTDC, Hector Beverages, First Source, etc. Shorebird has been generating revenue for over 18 months now, with positive unit economics.
The company’s technology platform, traction and rapid growth has attracted investor interest. To grow the business and scale rapidly, the company has brought on board Manish Raj, a former senior executive from Via.com as Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer.
The transaction volume on the Tripeur platform doubled in February as compared to January 2018. The target now is to grow the business by 10X in 2018 (as compared to 2017). Thiagarajan Rajagopalan, Founder & CEO, Tripeur said “We are excited to lead the corporate travel space into the Third Generation by deploying latest innovations in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Personalization in various aspects of corporate travel space – be it for the traveller experience or travel desk automation or post-travel reconciliation.
This round of funding will help our company to further our technology lead and grow our business “manifold”. “Corporate travel market in India is huge but it is not digitized yet and so much inefficiency exists. Unlike B2C
travel, corporate travel involves many processes such as policy implementation, authentification, booking, reflecting to accounting system, etc.
Thus, a complete, yet easy-to-use solution is required. Tripeur is an answer for this situation and we are so excited to join the journey” said Nao Murakami, Founder & General Partner, Incubate Fund India. “It is gratifying to see Tripeur getting wide reception in the market – from investors and customers alike. We are excited to see our transaction count double in February compared to January! With this additional investment coming in, we look forward to accelerate our business growth” said Sajit Chacko, Founder & COO, Tripeur.
Manish Raj, Co-Founder & Chief Business Officer, Tripeur said “I am excited join the Tripeur team as a co-founder and CBO. The corporate travel market in India is really huge at $36B a year, and we have a strong pipeline of customers to be able to get a chunk of this market. We are building a solid sales team to address the market and grow our business.”
