HolidayIQ to raise fund from Tiger Global, Accel Partner

Online holiday information portal HolidayIQ, February 18  said it will raise fresh round of funds from its existing investors, Tiger Global Management and Accel Partners for expanding its base in the mobile app segment.

"We are in talks to raise a fresh round of funding from our existing investors which is mainly for expanding our base in the mobile app segment as we feel that it is the next big thing," Founder and CEO of HolidayIQ, Hari Nair told PTI. However, the company did not disclose how much funds it plans to raise.

HolidayIQ has already raised four rounds of funding since 2010 from these investors and is planning to get the fresh investment by the end of third quarter of the next financial year.

Nair further said: "According to estimations in the next one year, the number of smart phone users in the country will be increasing by 300 million and we are mainly eyeing that."

The company has recently employed a sizable team of data science professionals for the app development programme and the fresh fundings will be for sustaining the team.

"We are targeting top institutes of the country like IITs and IIMs to get quality people into the company and we have already employed a few from IIT Kharagpur," Nair added.

HolidayIQ today launched an offline mobile app based tourist guide for 1,300 destinations in India which the company claims to be the country's first of its kind.

"We provide around 37,000 accommodation choices in more than 1,300 destinations and this offline app will surely be helping a number of people to find their needs in remote locations without internet connectivity," he said. The company said the website which operates on user generated contents has more than 3 million contributors.

The app has seen more than 98,000 downloads since its launch in November last year. American hedge fund Tiger Global Management Llc and venture capital firm Accel Partners have invested separately in a host of startups and online portals including Flipkart, Commonfloor and Snapdeal. Recently, Tiger Global has infused Rs 25 crore in News In Shorts along with other partners.