Ticketgoose.com, an online bus booking player, is expecting to close its second round of funding to the tune of Rs 25 crore by mid 2013. It closed the first round of funding of about Rs 4 crore in August, this year from US-based select angel investors.
According to the Web portal's founder and chief executive officer Arun Athiappan, bus travel in India will grow three-fold to Rs 45,000 crore by 2015 from the current level of Rs 15,000 crore. Online bus booking, which accounts for Rs 1,500 crore at present, is also registering an year-on-year growth rate of 30%.
Athiappan told media persons here on Thursday the company had started operations in tier two cities across south and west India. These included Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh.
Co-founder and chief operating officer of the portal, Vasu Ramasamy, said that Hyderabad was among the top five most profitable busy bus corridors in the country. The city's bus market had been growing at 30% since 2010 and currently has 800 buses of various types as against 450 buses two years back.
Ticketgoose.com India Private Limited, the promoter of the portal, is stated to be having over 500 bus operators as partners and a network over 3,000 channel partners who serve the customers without internet access.
