Budget hotel aggregator Room On Call has raised $2 million (around Rs 13.3 crore) in funding led by on-vehicle advertising company CASHurDRIVE Marketing Pvt Ltd.
The funds will be used for marketing, scaling up operations and expanding its presence in tier 2 and tier 3 cities, the company said in a statement.
Last year in September, Room On Call had raised $300,000 in funding from US-based Yahoo executive Payal Syal.
Founded in 2015 by Pradeep Sajjan, Amit Goel, Nirupma Dhawan, Room On Call is a hospitality brand of Neocell Technologies India Ltd. It helps travellers to discover and book budget accommodations through web and app. Customers can also book by calling its helpline number. In addition, Room On Call serves as a platform for hotels to promote their properties online. Sajjan has earlier worked with PepsiCo while Goel was with PayPal and CA Technologies; Dhawan has previously worked with DHL Express.
Nirupma Dhawan, Chief Operating officer of Room on Call said,
“The freshfunding will be used for marketing and strengthening operation in metros along with expanding presence in tier 2 and 3 cities. We will add new members to the current team of 27 and scale up operations to make a pan-India presence. We aim to put together those non-star categories under one brand and then standardize properties to give an unforgettable hospitality to our customers.”
The startup has been advised by web-based deal-enabling platform Enablers.
The startup claims to have a presence in 42 cities with over 400 hotels on its platform. It aims to start operations across 150 locations and increase the current inventory from 8000 rooms to 20,000 rooms nights by the end of the year.