What is TravelTriangle?
We all know how fascinating it can be to wander and see new places while accumulating extraordinary memories. It also allows you to take a pause from the monotonous everyday life to go on a get-away. Travelling is an extremely reviving experience that fills you up with energy. It keeps you excited and grateful about life. Nonetheless, it’s not similarly thrilling when you think about making appointments for the trip. From transportation to hotel registration, it tends to be extremely tedious and exhausting to discover something reasonable for you. You may even fall into undesirable snares and lose cash to fraudulent agencies. TravelTriangle takes care of all these issues to give you a wonderful holiday.
TravelTriangle (1) is one of the most popular online marketplaces for travellers in India. It was founded in 2011 by a group of three friends – Sanchit Garg, Prabhat Gupta and Sankalp Agarwal. The three IITians came up with the idea while they were on a trip to Leh. It was the summer of 2010 and they had a decent encounter in the hills. Even though they were happy about the journey, they realised a few mistakes they made. After addressing different voyagers, Sanchit, Prabhat and Sankalp discovered that there were bigger offers than the ones they found.
Different travel planners were offering packages at various costs. This experience is what led to creating a unified platform for people to find travel agents. TravelTriangle owns a network of more than 650 travel agents and a list of around 65 destinations around the globe. The clients can easily search for the places they want to visit and choose the deals which they like best. As of now, around 20 lakh travellers make use of TravelTriangle to plan their holidays.
About the founders
The co-founders of TravelTriangle, Sanchit Garg, Prabhat Gupta and Sankalp Agarwal were tight friends from their school days. Their companionship started because their roll numbers were close, which in turn put them in the same bench. They also had a common adoration for science. All three of them originated from business families and their folks needed them to have all-around successful lives. After their schooling, the trio went on to pursue a degree in computer science from IIT. However, this time they had to separate and go to three different colleges.
Sanchit, Prabhat and Sankalp joined the IITs in Kharagpur, Mumbai and Guwahati respectively. Their skills and qualification allowed them to secure high-earning jobs at famous companies. Prabhat got into Oracle, Sankalp joined Adobe and Sanchit started working for Yahoo. After their trip to Leh, they started working on the idea of a holiday marketplace. Soon their dream of TravelTriangle became successful and well-received around the country. Sankalp Agarwal is currently the Chief Executive Officer at TravelTriangle. Prabhat Gupta is the Chief Technology Officer and Sanchit Garg is the director.
The beginning of TravelTriangle
After the idea of TravelTriangle was born in their minds, Sankalp, Prabhat and Sanchit quit their jobs to build it. They began their proceedings from a garage which was joined to a three-room apartment in Noida. Sankalp and Sanchit stayed there along with another companion of theirs. This third friend often told them that it was such a bad time to dive into a business. The global economy was experiencing a catastrophe, so they were putting a lot at stake. However, their adoration for innovation and talent for illuminating puzzles kept them going. The trio dealt with many issues and acknowledged the necessary requirements without any hesitation.
They conducted surveys to discover what tourists needed in today’s world. They also met and saw how travel planners functioned and discovered numerous voids in the market. After a top to bottom examination and heaps of sound judgment, the web-based business platform named TravelTriangle appeared. They were soon able to develop a brilliant business model of their platform. They made it capable of solving the issues of both the travellers and the travel agents.
For the agents, they manufactured a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. It could assist them in overseeing and examining client collaborations and information. TravelTriangle will provide them with wide analytical information regarding the clients. Thus, the travel agents will be able to improve their business associations with the customers by providing personalised deals and services. The customers could use the platform to find the right agents and deals for their holidays. The agents would assist them while planning the itinerary and making the necessary bookings. After the development of such a great product, the next step was to find the right travel agents and clients.
Initial struggles and success
One of the greatest obstacles at first was persuading the travel agents to utilise this opportunity. They were able to secure their first deals with the help of travel blogs and forums. After the travel agents were found the next step was getting adequate human capital. The company was running short on employees. After looking through the job boards and calling for applicants, two individuals showed up for an interview. Soon, more people started applying for jobs with TravelTriangle and their team kept growing. As of now, the company has employees from 20 cities in the country, therefore being home to seven different languages.
Within a year of starting business, TravelTriangle the startup raised a heavenly attendant subsidizing of Rs 60 lakh from a number of individual investors. In the same year, NASSCOM selected them as one of the Top 50 Growing Startups. They also received an award for the Website of the Year. In 2012, TravelTriangle received the title Microsoft Biz Spark Startup. Later in July 2014, they were able to raise 1.7 million dollars in a series A round of funding from SAIF Partners. The series B round in April 2015 was led by Bessemer Venture Partners and it raised 8 million dollars.
They conducted another series B round of funding in February 2017. They were able to obtain 10 million dollars from RB Investments Pte Ltd. TravelTriangle also had a Series C investment of 12 million dollars in 2018 from Fundamentum which is supported by Nandan Nilekani and Sanjeev Aggarwal. The company is on its way to include all the segments of travel and tourism through its profoundly inventive and innovation centred platform. They have also just raised a total sum of $20 Million from SAIF Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and RB Investments Pte Ltd.
Author: Nidhia Sebastian
Source : https://timesnext.com/traveltriangle-startup/
Date : 2020-08-27T13:42:27.000Z