Tech-enabled budget hotel chain Treebo has raised Rs 112 crore (~$16.7M) in a Series B round of funding led by Bertelsmann India Investments (BII) and with participation from SAIF Partners and Matrix Partners India. The platform will use the funding for expand to more than 60 cities and increasing its current inventory of 3,000 rooms to 12,000 rooms in the next 12 months, including business and leisure destinations. It also plans to launch a product extension including mid scale and leisure rooms, expanding from its current portfolio of budget rooms. Treebo had previously raised around $6 million in funding from SAIF and Matrix in June last year. The company was founded the same year by former Myntra executives Siddharth Gupta and Rahul Chaudhary, along with Kadam Jeet Jain. Treebo is currently active in Kolkata, Goa, Mysore, Gurgaon, Chandigarh, Ooty, Udaipur, Manali, Agra, Kodaikanal, Bangalore, Chennai etc. It had recently expanded operations to Mumbai, Delhi and Jaipur, when it said that it would adopt a differentiated pricing system in different cities. At the time it claimed that it had 75% occupancy in its inventory of 1,000 rooms in Bangalore over two months. Competition Treebo enters a crowded place in the budget hotels space and it remains to be seen how it will differentiate itself from the current crop of players who are already operating in the same space. It currently offers certain unique features like ‘Friends of Treebo’ wherein registered members of the community stay at Treebo properties as its unannounced…
