Matrix Partners India and SAIF Partners invest $6 mn in Treebo

The online aggregator for branded budget hotels will use these funds for expanding its network and hiring talent

Matrix Partners India and SAIF Partners today announced that they have co-led a $6 million first institutional round of funding for Treebo Hotels, a new age, tech-enabled chain of hotels offering quality accommodation to travellers at affordable prices. Treebo will use these funds for expanding its network of hotels, developing state-of-the-art technology and hiring top talent.

Treebo was founded by Sidharth Gupta, Rahul Chaudhary and Kadam Jeet Jain. Before launching this venture, Sidharth and Rahul worked as Vice-Presidents at Flipkart-Myntra leading several strategic initiatives for the group and were colleagues at McKinsey & Company before that. Their co-founder and fellow-alumnus from IIT Roorkee, Kadam, comes with nine years of start-up experience and until recently was the VP-Engineering for MyGola, an online travel company that was acquired by MakeMyTrip earlier this year.

“There are over 1 million budget hotel rooms in India. But 95% of them are in the unorganised segment. Therefore, despite the availability of online booking options and third party reviews, the lack of quality assurance continues to be an unsolved problem for the traveller in this segment. This is the problem we are focused on solving. Our hotels come with an unprecedented ‘100% Quality Guarantee’. We believe there is a huge untapped opportunity in this space and ability to deliver great customer experience will be the key success factor,” said Sidharth Gupta, co-founder of Treebo.

Rahul Chaudhary, co-founder of Treebo added: “Our unique, asset-light business model and strong team has allowed us to build an inventory of over 200 carefully curated rooms in Bangalore in a short span of two months. Over the course of the year, we will partner with high-quality budget hotels to scale to a network of 5,000 rooms across 20 cities. SAIF and Matrix are two of the most respected names in the venture capital world and have mentored several successful startups in the country. They share our passion and commitment towards offering a quality experience to customers.”

“The biggest challenge in the highly fragmented budget hotel space is the lack of standardisation. Travellers are skeptical of what to expect when booking a room at an unbranded property. With a trusted brand like Treebo, customers can book with confidence knowing that all Treebo properties will have a safe, comfortable and standardised service offering at an affordable price.” said Tarun Davda, Director, Matrix India.

“The budget hotel segment in India will continue to experience strong growth driven by growth in both business and leisure travel. The model adopted by Treebo has already seen tremendous success in China, which until a decade back was an unorganized market similar to what we see in India today. We are confident that Treebo can emulate that success in India and unlock immense value by solving a genuine problem faced by travellers today.” said Mayank Khanduja, Vice-President, SAIF Partners.