HolidayIQ to raise USD 15 mn from Makemytrip

Travel community and holidays recommendation engine HolidayIQ today said it will raise USD 15 million as the next round of capital from online travel company Makemytrip.
The funds will mainly be used to further strengthen its capabilities on content, mobile and product, HolidayIQ said in a release here.
Earlier, HolidayIQ had raised series A funding from Tiger Global and Accel Partners.
Currently, HolidayIQ has over a million holiday reviews from Indian travellers, which is expected to increase multi-fold over the next two years.
"Mobile is creating new unprecedented opportunities for growth and innovation. This capital gives us additional resources to expand quickly and strategically and accelerate pace of product innovation," HolidayIQ Founder and CEO Hari Nair said.

"We look forward to working closely with Makemytrip in getting a much larger number of Indian travellers to participate in the creation of Indian traveller opinion," Nair added.

MakeMyTrip.Com Founder and Group CEO Deep Kalra said, "HolidayIQ operates in a very exciting space in the Indian online travel market. Their pace and appetite for innovation matches ours, and we see great synergy in our focus on Hotels and Mobile. The opportunity to drive scale jointly is fairly significant."
This tie-up will power MakeMyTrip's hotel-growth strategy, and also provide immense value to Indian travellers in the form of user generated and curated trip-planning content, MakeMyTrip Co-Founder and CEO-India Rajesh Magow said.

"We also expect to rapidly scale our reviews and recommendation engine as an outcome of this investment," he added.