Staybazar has room for $6 m in VC funding

Amidst the attention grabbed by budget hotel room aggregators, who have attracted millions of dollars in funding over the past year, enters Staybazar.com, a marketplace for alternative accommodation options.

Staybazar, which went live in May 2015, has notched up listings of 1,220 properties across 65 cities with a total of 25,000 rooms on its marketplace platform. Over the past four months, it has sold 750 room nights at an average transaction value of ₹1,300 per night.

The start-up has already attracted the attention of two venture capital (VC) firms and is in the market to raise $5-6 million.

“There are many portals for hotel stays. However, there are hardly any dedicated to providing alternative accommodation, such as serviced apartments which are more spacious, affordable and comfortable than hotel rooms in the equivalent category,” Prem Kumar, CEO and CFO of Staybazar, told BusinessLine .

Staybazar is run by Southern E-Commerce Solutions Pvt Ltd, promoted by four friends — Prem Kumar, G Anand (business development), Sajeev Kumar (supplier partnerships) and George Padath (CTO).

The partners, who hold 100 man years of experience, have pooled in ₹2.5 crore to kick-start Staybazar.

The demand for alternative accommodation — which is estimated to be 20-30 per cent cheaper than hotels options in the same category — is growing in India.

Staybazar aims to tap that with a combination of serviced apartments, home stays, theme stays and resort stays in prices ranging from ₹1,000 to ₹7,000 per night.

“We are targeting large corporates, small and medium enterprises and retail customers,” said Prem Kumar.

“However, our primary focus right now is corporates. We have already signed up with 143 corporate customers and are providing them with accommodation for various needs — from business travel to annual family events, conferences, holidays and staff training. We are targeting 500 corporate customers by December with a minimum billing potential of ₹10 lakh per customer, per annum.”

“The alternative accommodation space is dominated by small players in the informal segment and therefore there is no standardised offering available to customers,” he added. “We offer the providers free listing of their properties on Staybazar, visit every property listed on our site to ensure that they maintain our quality standards, and make a commission on each customer transaction.”

Staybazar is looking to end fiscal 2015-16 with 2,000 corporate customers and an inventory of 75,000 rooms. The company has also started seeing traction in the retail customer segment, and expects it to emerge as a major revenue generator in a year.

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