Cox & Kings promoter picks up 51% stake in travel start-up

Founder and promoter of Cox & Kings, Urrshila Kerkar, has picked up 51 per cent stake in Gurgaon-based travel start-up – We Are Holidays (WAH), with an investment of about ₹50 crore.

Kerkar will be leading the Series B round and has bought out the stakes held by high-profile investors like Vijay Shekhar, Founder of Paytm; Anupam Mittal, Founder of Shaadi.com; Sachin Bhatia, Founder of MakeMyTrip and Rajesh Sawhney, former CEO of Reliance Entertainment, along with Blume Ventures and Matrix Partners.

Earlier, listed-company Cox & Kings had invested in online travel portal Ezeego.com with a 10 per cent stake. But this time, it is the promoter and director of Cox & Kings, who is investing in a travel start-up in her personal capacity.

“It would be a strategic partnership with a listed company like Cox & Kings since its promoter and founder has now invested in Series B in our company. We exist in a different space in the social media aspect of travel, where Cox & Kings does not have presence. Urrshila has bought out the stakes from some of our angel investors, and would be the largest shareholder in our start-up,” said Deepak Wadhwa, CEO & Founder, We Are Holidays.

There were almost 20 angel investors who participated in the seed round of We Are Holidays and most of whom have exited. The balance stake in the travel start-up will be held by its founders and investors like Mumbai Angels and GSL.

A marketplace for leisure holidays, WAH had raised $ 2.5 million in Series A.

With its Series B funding, it will be focussing on the social aspect of travel and re-launch its app (BIA) on the app store and IOS.

The app will help in recording trips, while travelling and serve as a one-stop shop for information, uploading vouchers and getting shopping details on the mobile.