Exclusive: Tripoto is raising $6-7 Mn in Series B round

Online community for travellers Tripoto is raising around $6 million in fresh funding led by two new investors including a Chinese group. Existing investors including IDG, GWC Innovator Fund, and Outbox Ventures will also participate in the financing round.

“Tripoto is in talks to raise this round for about couple of months. The deal has been signed and would be announced later next month,” say two sources aware with the deal on condition of anonymity. Entrackr couldn’t ascertain the name of the lead investor.

This would be the fourth round of investment for the Delhi-based company. Entrackr has reached out to Anirudh Gupta, co-founder, and CEO, Tripoto for confirmation. We will update the post as his response comes in.

Last year, it raised $2 million Series A round from Beijing-based GWC Innovator Fund. Previously, it secured an undisclosed amount of Pre Series A round from IDG, 500 Startups and Neeraj Arora (VP, Whatsapp) and Leon Seynave (Chairman Stanhope Capital) in 2015.

Tripoto brings together travellers from around the world to share and discover real, and actionable crowdsourced travel stories. The startup maps every single destination in the story, along with the associated content and pictures.

“Due diligence has been completed almost three weeks ago and shareholding agreement is currently underway. Tripoto wants to deploy fresh capital to strengthen its presence among global travellers and generate high-quality content,” reveal sources.

Founded in 2013 by Anirudh Gupta and Michael Lyngdoh - Tripoto currently claims to have 25 million global travellers on its platform. Besides discovery and itinerary, Tripoto had entered a transactional model with holiday packages last year. The company generates revenue through advertising, selling leads and commission.

Earlier, Tripoto had raised a seed round from Outbox Ventures, Snapdeal’s co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal and Sachin Bhatia in late 2014.

To assist travellers in real time, the startup had launched chat-based virtual interactive assistance in 2016. It can be used for fetching answers ranging from destinations, top attractions, travel itineraries amongst others.

The company competes with TripHobo, HolidayIQ in India while Vayable and Advenjo are its global competitor.