ONGC’s R.S Sharma Invests In Online Travel Portal Tip Tap Toe In Exchange For 26% Equity

Published on 16 Nov, 2016

Gurugram-based travel portal and travel concierge app, Trip Tap Toe has raised fresh capital in exchange of 26% stake for an undisclosed amount. R.S Sharma, former Chairman and Managing Director of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) invested through his son Nayan Parashar, Director at Trip Tap Toe.

The raised funds will be used to expand its sales team, initiate new marketing initiatives, invest in the mobile & web technology platform, and hire talent in the industry.

Mohit Nichani, the financial advisor of the transaction said: “Trip Tap Toe has been steadily growing over the years at a healthy CAGR in the range of 60-70%, and with this transaction the company is expected to significantly improve its foray into the corporate travel segment and improve its technology platform.”

Founded in 2008 by Manuraj Singh Johar, Trip Tap Toe is an online platform to search, discover, and book worldwide hotels, flights, curated itineraries, and activities. They recently launched their concierge app, on both Android and iOS, with an aim to complete the entire travel cycle of discovery- search – planning – comparisons – negotiations, and booking through the chat based app.

“Messaging & artificial intelligence are the next big things in travel. Although we are still sometime away from training bots to the best of their intelligence we cannot ignore them.”

He further added, “Every early-stage venture hopes to raise capital and attain strategic assistance to take its product to the market. This investment will help us accelerate our efforts to reinforce our stature in the industry.”

As claimed in a press release statement, the company is well on track to achieve revenue of INR 80 Mn-INR 100 Mn for FY17, thereby raising its business value in the range of INR 150 Mn-INR 200 Mn.

According to a report by Aranca, the online travel bookings market is expected to touch 46% in 2017, from 41% in 2014. Other startups in this space are Tripoto, Travel Triangle, ixigo, PlanMyTravel, iTraveller and more.