Tripeur to make difference in travel biz

Tripeur, an end-to-end corporate travel management platform owned Shorebird Technologies, has raised $6,00,000 in pre-series A funding led by Japan-based Incubate Fund. In an interaction with DH, Tripeur CEO and Founder Thiagarajan Rajagopalan explains his vision to avail advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms to drive efficiency for customisation and ease of use for employees business travel.

Can you share some light on how did you conceptualise the idea?

Globally, Business travel is a $1.3 trillion industry, annually. Even the domestic Indian market is significantly large at $40 billion, with an 11% aggregated annual growth. Despite being such a large market, this space failed to garner adequate digital technologies-based innovation. Post Concur (a travel ERP company acquired by SAP for $8.3 Billion in 2014), there has been no recognisable tech-development or tech-initiatives in this space. Currently Concur is the market leader in the Corporate Travel ERP space. This opens up an opportunity for new-age tech play to innovate and disrupt the market.

And Tripeur is attempting to do just that and is currently leading the space. Tripeur is a 3 rd generation, end-to-end corporate travel management platform that uses advanced technologies including Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Blockchain. The company’s platform is designed for optimisation of convenience, cost and compliance of corporates’ travel ecosystem.

How does Tripeur intends to redefine corporate travel experience?

Currently, in most companies, enterprise travel and expense management process is broken. None of the users - be it the travellers or HR or travel desk or finance - is happy with the process. Such a situation exists because most companies use one of the two prevalent methodologies – either a first generation (outsourcing travel to Travel Management Companies) or second generation (in-sourcing travel to agents using Online Travel Agent logins) solution. Both of which, while they have certain advantages, are significantly human-effort intensive. Tripeur is a third generation platform that uses advanced technologies such as ML, AI, Blockchain, data analytics and cloud, and delivery platforms including web and mobile, to make the entire corporate travel workflow seamless and automated.

How much funds have you raised so far?

We have raised close to a million dollars through seed and pre-series A rounds since its establishment in December 2015.

How did you build your team?

We believe in a strong team across departments to be successful. When we started, we reached out to the experts in the industry, and through their referrals, we built the initial team. As we grew, the normal hiring process took over, and we hired through employee referrals, job sites, etc. Our differentiated product offerings and maturity in the industry is now attracting expert talents that was otherwise inaccessible.

What is the transaction volume of your company?

Tripeur kickstarted revenue generation in late 2016, and is well on its way to become operationally positive by the end of 2018. We have been growing rapidly and are on target to triple our revenues in the next 9 months. This will help us increase our margins and turn operationally positive this year. Over the next three years, we are targeting to expand our SaaS business share and also enter a few international markets. Our vision over the next five years is to transform the business travel domain completely using AI, ML, deep analytics and
blockchain, and evolve as the dominant player in the industry

How many clients do you have currently?

We have over 50 corporate clients including some of the large ones such as DTDC, PayTm, Fidelity, Firstsource, Sharekhan, Paper Boat, etc. The company offers the platform and its various modules through a combination of SaaS-based license model and transaction fee.

What are your future expansion plans (specify numbers)?

In the near term, we plan to triple our business in the next 9 months (July 18 - March 19). In the longer term, we are pushing ourselves to be at an annual run rate of 1000 cr by March 2021.