 "TravelKhana raises funds in pre-Series A round led by Astarc Ventures")
TravelKhana, a Delhi-based food-ordering platform for train passengers , has raised an undisclosed amount in an investment round led by Mumbai-based seed fund Astarc Ventures.
This is a bridge round to TravelKhana’s Series-A round, expected to be around $10 million (Rs 66 crore).
The current round of investment was made via LetsVenture, an online platform for start-ups to facilitate angel and seed investments. TravelKhana will use the funds to expand to 400 railway stations from 150 by the end of 2016, besides improving back-end technology.
“Businesses built on basic needs of life are areas of high interest to us – food, clothing, housing, health and the like. Of these, food is the most basic and more so you really feel the pain when you are in a train and don’t get good food to eat. TravelKhana has done a fabulous job in getting the initial traction and getting a good working model,” Salil Musale, executive director of Astarc Ventures, said in a statement on Monday.
Founded in January 2012 by Pushpinder Singh, TravelKhana was angel funded previously by investors like Rajan Anandan, Alok Mittal and Sarbvir Singh. The company has scaled up operations across 160 cities in India, and is serving most long-distance trains in the country. Its revenues for the 2014-15 financial year stood at Rs 1 crore.
TravelKhana is actively looking at participating in the railways system. It is building a ‘virtual QSR’ model on its marketplace with strong processes for the restaurants on its marketplace such that it can scale to buses and highways, thereby positioning itself as a clear leader in the food for travel marketplace model. This model will eventually be applicable to in-the-city marketplace as well, the release said.
