RailYatri raises Series B round led by Omidyar Network

RailYatri, a Noida-based train travel startup, on Friday raised an undisclosed sum in a Series B round led by impact investor Omidyar Network.

The company, with over 12 million monthly users, has emerged as top travel destination with addition of bus and one-way cab booking.

Besides Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, RailYatri's current funding got participation from existing investors like Blume Ventures and Helion Venture Partners.

Even though RailYatri did not disclose the size of the round, sources familiar with the transaction states that the round helped the company to mop up around $10 million.

Commenting on the development, RailYatri CEO and Co-founder Manish Rathi said the company is overwhelmed by the travellers response to the platform.

"We expect to be India’s largest traveller destination this year. Our marketplace has exceeded expectations and is touching 100 crore run rate in bookings in its first full year," he said.

The company's offline reach extends to over 100 cities with the tier-2 and tier-3 cities helping drive growth.

"We plan to reach 10 million annual transaction rate this year, and this round will help us in achieving our goal. Our low cost of acquisition allows growth with margins, and RailYatri is now expanding into budget hotels and packages, for which we are aggressively hiring in all verticals," said Rathi.

RailYatri which has a strong base of loyal users has come a long way from being an information platform to a leading e-commerce entity which helps travellers make better, informed buying decisions.

Siddharth Nautiyal, Investment Partner at Omidyar Network, said the company continues to be very impressed by the growth, consumer feedback and large-scale impact of the RailYatri platform.

"They are constantly innovating to improve the travel experience for millions of travellers every day. We are confident that they will soon be the default starting point for any traveller in India and especially the next half billion Indians coming online over the next three to five years," said Nautiyal.