Indian hotel chain Treebo secures $34mn in funding

Treebo, one of India’s largest hotel chains, has secured $34mn in funding, as part of its Series C funding round. The money, invested from Hong Kong-based investment firms Ward Ferry Management and Karst Peak Capital, will be used to expand its portfolio in new and existing cities, while strengthening its brand identity and bolstering its technology team. Existing investors SAIF Partners, Matrix Partners India and Bertelsmann India Investments have already injected $17mn into Treebo during the first two rounds of its funding campaigns.
Treebo is a ‘tech-enabled budget hotel brand’ founded in 2015 by Rahul Chaudhary, Sidharth Gupta and Kadam Jeet Jain and it currently has 300 franchises in 53 cities across India, offering up 6,000 guestrooms. Treebo is India’s third largest hotel chain and operates within the budget segment, which is currently being valued at $20bn. 
Increasingly, the hotel industry is being viewed as a tempting alternative to airline flights for many large aggregators, with considerably higher profit margins.

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The investment by the Hong Kong investment firms into Treebo is seen as a show of intent against rivals such as Oyo Rooms and Fab Hotels. 
Since its opening in 2015, Treebo Hotels has raised $57mn in capital so far and now the startup is trying to move away from its image as a tech-heavy aggregator to shift the focus onto ‘value for money’. Sidhartha Gupta told the Times of India: “I am glad that over the last 12-18 months we have led the way in helping the ecosystem realise the importance of guest experience over everything else. This is not about hyper scale or deep discounting. Delivering terrific value for money is the only real problem to be solved here.”