New Delhi-based Bliss Inns Pvt. Ltd., which runs an asset-light resort management company under the brand name V Resorts, has raised $4 million (Rs 25.7 crore) in its third round of funding from existing investors RB International and Seedfund, according to a press statement.
The company currently manages over 70 resorts across 15 states in the country. It aggregates existing properties and manages their operations on a revenue-share basis.
V Resorts will use the new capital to expand operations. The company is also looking to double inventory by the end of this year and aiming for three-fold growth, Aditi Balbir, founder and chief executive of V Resorts, said in the statement.
“Initiatives are in place to increase our footprints to over 1,000 locations in India in the next two years. Keeping in mind our goal of going where Indians go, international expansion is on the cards as well. South East Asia is amongst the favourite overseas destinations with Indians, so it’s a prudent decision to focus our initial expansion efforts there,†Balbir added.
Balbir, who is an alumnus of Indian School of Business (ISB), has been a venture capitalist and has previously worked with Bedrock Ventures, Baring Private Equity Partners and McKinsey & Company.
V Resorts was incubated by Bedrock in 2010, which invested Rs 3 crore in it. Later, the company also raised funds from Ravi Dhariwal, former chief executive of Bennett, Coleman and Company Ltd, and Delhi-based Lakshmi Publications. In 2013, it raised Rs 10 crore from early-stage VC investor Seedfund. Last year, V Resorts raised around Rs 13 crore from RB International. Balbir had previously told VCCircle that last year’s fund raise was part of the round the company raised in 2014. It is not clear when RB International came on board as a new investor.
Seedfund has stopped investing in new firms and is now only managing its portfolio companies and participating in their follow-on rounds. Two of its co-founders, Pravin Gandhi and Bharati Jacob, have both separately launched new VC funds. Some of the companies Seedfund has invested in include e-commerce firm Voonik, logistics tech startup Browntape, design-led retailer Chumbak and big data company Heckyl Technologies.
The online accommodation-booking space has been in the news for both shutdowns and fundraising recently. Last month, VCCircle reported that Delhi-based NightStay, a mobile-based marketplace for last-minute hotel bookings, raised an undisclosed amount in a pre-Series A round led by Indian Angel Network and LetsVenture.
In the same month, its competitor HotelsAroundYou ceased operations.
In February, Stayzilla, which had raised close to $30 million from investors such as Nexus Venture Partners and Matrix Partners, said it was halting operations.
Earlier this month, Mumbai-based Stay Vista Pvt. Ltd, which operates budget hotel aggregator Vista Rooms, raised a little over Rs 5 crore ($776,000) in pre-Series A funding from a bunch of investors, including seed-stage investor Artha India Ventures, Singularity Holdings and online funding platform LetsVenture.
