Update | October 22, 16:51
Delhi-based B2B travel tech startup TravClan has raised a $5 Mn funding round comprising a mix of equity and debt. While Walmart-owned ecommerce major Flipkart and Singapore-based investment firm August One subscribed to the equity portion of the round, Trifecta Capital provided the debt financing.
“The next generation of travel software will not just help sellers search faster. It will increasingly execute work for them. Our ambition is to make TravClan the infrastructure that any travel business can build on instead of having to recreate the entire travel stack itself. This capital allows us to invest aggressively behind that opportunity,” said TravClan CEO and cofounder Arun Bagaria.
Original | October 5, 18:51
Walmart-owned Flipkart picked up a minority stake in Delhi-based B2B travel tech startup TravClan to bolster its international travel offerings, expand holiday packages offered by subsidiaries Cleartrip and Flipkart Travel as well as enhancing on-ground support across.
The ecommerce giant also aims to leverage the partnership to expand its own curated international leisure offerings by tapping into TravClan’s technology and partner network.
On the other side of the table, the fresh capital infusion will support TravClan’s team expansion in business development, engineering, and destination operations, as well as allow for further investments in global supply, technology, and destination expansion.
“Travellers today are looking for more than a flight or hotel booking. They want a holiday that is curated around their interests and supported throughout the journey. TravClan’s supplier network and destination capabilities will help us build that experience across Cleartrip and Flipkart Travel,” said Nishant Verman, Flipkart’s SVP, Corporate Development and Partnerships.
Founded by Arun Bagaria, Chirag Agrawal, and Ashish Thapliyal in 2018, TravClan assists travel agents to build and grow online businesses. It works with over 15,000 travel agents to customise and book real-time packages, hotels, and activities.
The startup’s cap table also includes angel investors like Cars24 cofounders Vikram Chopra and Mehul Agrawal and Trip.com’s Travis Katz, as well as institutional investors like Leo Capital.
Flipkart’s Diversification Push
For Flipkart, the travel tech investment adds on to its push to build out its other business verticals beyond its flagship ecommerce platform.
While the company has been eyeing new entries in the food delivery and the event ticketing industry, it has been aggressively doubling down on its quick commerce arm, Flipkart Minutes.
Ahead of its annual Big Billion Days, the ecommerce giant announced that it has expanded its dark store network to nearly 1,200 Flipkart Minutes microfulfillment centres across 150-plus cities. The company is now expected to add another 1,000 dark stores by mid-2027 or the Big Billion Days sale of 2027.
In recent years, it has also expanded its in-house Flipkart Travel beyond flight booking services into bus bookings and hotel bookings. Cleartrip, an online travel aggregator which Flipkart acquired in 2021, also later expanded into corporate travel.
Besides, Flipkart made some additional investments in AI startups last week. Its investment arm Flipkart Ventures backed Alive, an AI-powered platform for live consumer experiences, and Keploy, a native-AI software testing platform.
To date, Flipkart has made over 20 startup investments via Flipkart Ventures across AI, consumer internet, fintech, e-commerce adjacencies and logistics tech.
It claims to support portfolio ventures with strategic mentorship, operational expertise and access to its ecosystem in order to help them scale, besides the capital they get.
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