Hot on the heels of acquiring the online hotel aggregator TravelGuru, online travel agent Yatra.com has raised $14.5 million in series D funding, according to an SEC filing. This was first reported by TechCircle.in. According to the filing, Yatra is raising this capital through Series D preferred stock which is convertible to common stock and it intends to use the capital raised for general corporate purposes including executive salaries. Interestingly, the filing suggests that the company was planning to actually raise $16.5 million but raised $14.5 million ($14,499,993) in the end. That being said, Yatra CEO Dhruv Shringi has apparently denied any such fund raising activity to TechCircle and has not responded to any questions regarding the SEC filing to the publication. We're wondering if this was a pre-IPO funding. Yatra currently has five investors according to the filing, although the company's website lists only four at present - Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), Reliance ADA Group’s Reliance Venture Asset Management, Television 18 (TV18) Group, and Intel Capital. In April 2011, it had raised 200 crores ($45 million) from Valiant Capital Management, and existing investors like Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) and Intel Capital. Film actor Salman Khan had also received a minority stake in an endorsement deal in March 2012, although an Economic Times report had quoted a company official stating that the actor has received less than 5% stake in Yatra. Earlier in the week, Yatra had acquired online hotel aggregator TravelGuru from Travelocity and had stated that the acquisition would enable it to extend itself as a leading aggregator of hotels, with access to more than 6500 hotels…
