Bengaluru-based travel booking service provider Flynote is raising another tranche of ₹14 crores ($2 million) from Sequoia, Surge and India Quotient. Surge will pour ₹8.89 crores whereas Sequoia will put ₹6 lakhs. With its fund IQ Alpha III, India Quotient will also invest ₹5.16 crores.
Earlier last week, Flynote raised ₹1.38 crores from Surge and very little capital from Sequoia. This development will take Flynote’s total funding from these three investors to ₹15.5 crores. Sequoia-Surge has earlier invested in a number of Indian startups including BulBul Shop, Azani Sports, Skillmatics and DoubtNut.
Founded by Parth Pratik and Ankit Abhishek, Flynote is a marketplace for agents and consumers. The platform connects travel agents to provide deals on flights, hotels, and cars to customers. Unlike other travel marketplaces who sell holiday packages, Flynote controls experience via simple WhatsApp integration.
The startup caters to eight global destinations including Switzerland, Singapore, Thailand, Maldives, Andaman and Nicobar and more. If assessed carefully, Flynote appears to be an enhanced version of Matrix and Blume-backed WeAreHolidays. The company which is now part of Cox & Kings used to help travelers with itineraries and procuring deals on several services.
India’s online travel market stood at $5.71 billion in 2015, according to Praxis. The report said most of the growth in the Indian travel market would come from the increasing penetration of international flight and hotel bookings offered by online portals such as Cleartrip, MakeMyTrip, Yatra, and others.
