Bengaluru-based SavvyMob, an on-demand mobile marketplace for last minute hotel rooms in India, has closed a seed investment to further expand its product and to strengthen its technology team.
The investment is led by Mohandas Pai’s Aarin Capital and includes members of prominent business houses in India and angels from online funding platform, LetsVenture.
SavvyMob to use new funding for expansion within India.
“This additional funding is a great vote of confidence in SavvyMob’s vision as well as long term potential of our company,” say Bikram Sohal and Gappan Annamalai, co-founders of SavvyMob.
“We are by far the fastest growing company in our market category, and we plan to use this funding to invest even more heavily in ensuring the success of our customers and to further accelerate our growth. We will be adding on-demand hotel inventory of over 5,000 hotels across 100+ cities in India onto our mobile marketplace in the coming few months,” they added.
SavvyMob will also expand its marketing effort to target the business and leisure millennial travellers who are looking for the best rates for their unplanned or spontaneous travels.
The digital hotel booking market is currently around 30% of the overall Indian hotel market, but is growing at a rapid pace. Google expects the digital hotel booking market to more than double to US$1.8 billion by 2016, and SavvyMob sees majority of those transactions happening on mobile devices.
“With growing smartphone user base in India, SavvyMob is in a great position to be the go-to last minute hotel booking partner for SMEs and independent travellers. Strong relationships with hotels and a strong technology platform makes SavvyMob a leading aspirant in this space”, said Mohandas Pai, co-founder of Aarin Capital.
• Featured image credit (hotel room): jjmm888/iStock
