Online travel package booking site Travelmasti.com has been acquired by Via, a Bangalore based travel service company, reports Nextbigwhat. We checked, and the TravelMasti website sports logo with the message that "TravelMasti is now Via". The footer of the website states: "Copyrights © Reserved. 2012.Travelmasti.com is a brand owned by Flightraja Travels Private Limited™" The acquisition brings travel packages to its offerings at Via.com (formerly flightraja.com). Founded by Vinay Gupta and Amit Aggarwal in 2006, Via.com is a travel aggregator with more than 20,000 partners across 1,000 cities in India. Previously, Via.com had added a rather odd startup to its portfolio by acquiring Lifemojo, a wellness products focused e-commerce startup. We checked, and Lifemojo.com is currently down. Note that in the recent past, the way the travel business has changed: OTA's are charging a significant convenience fee on flight tickets. New Delhi based Travelmasti provides travel related services to customers along with corporate packages for events. The company also provides its offline service through its Travelmasti Lounge Network present in Dehradun (Uttaranchal), Rajkot, Jamnagar, and Surat (Gujarat). It had raised funds in 2007 from Bennett Coleman Company Lt (BCCL), via the Private Treaties model. We had debated BCCL's rationale of investing in multiple travel portals, as a part of our launch story: MediaNama: Let me take the example of Travel space, where you have invested in TravelMasti, TravelChacha, Ezeego1, TravelGuru and HolidayIQ. Where is the competitive advantage established by you since they’re competing with each other? Times Private Treaties: Very good point. Actually it’s very simple: the…
