Treebo Hotels raises Rs 45 crore to ramp up software biz

BENGALURU: Budget hospitality brand Treebo Hotels has raised Rs 45 crore from its existing set of backers - SAIF Partners, Matrix Partners India, Ward Ferry and Bertelsmann India - even as the company braces for a long recovery for the sector from the Covid-19 pandemic. The company, which competes with players like Softbank-backed Oyo and Accel-backed Fabhotels, is now planning to scale up its software as a service (SaaS) business as it waits for travel to pick up.
“We expect leisure travel to lead the recovery,” said Sidharth Gupta, co-founder of the six-year-old company. He added that during the long weekend from October 2-4, Treebo saw an average occupancy of 50-60% among its leisure properties. But he is cautious about the full recovery in the business.
“We are operating with a very lean cost structure and keep looking for alternative sources of demand,” said Gupta, a former McKinsey and Myntra executive. He added that right now about 50% of the 600 hotels in its network are open for business, from just 20% in August. The new round takes the total capital raised by Treebo close to Rs 400 crore.
Last year, the company launched a product called ‘Hotel Superhero’ which helps hotels manage technology requirement. With an initial focus on independent properties, it was able to scale up to about 500 hotels, now it is adding more feature to the product and also plans to target chains. The product was developed by Treebo initially to manage its owns 600 properties, and it is counting on the experience of running hotels to build a better product.
“The new avatar is in a pre-launch phase right now. We are offering an all in one, integrated hotel management software which is cloud-native. Till now the hospitality services in the organised space has been working on antiquated on-premises technology and that is the opportunity we are going after,” said Gupta.