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Indian backpacker hostel brand goSTOPS raises additional USD 1 million

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Pallavi Agarwal_Founder & CEO, goSTOPS

The freshly infused funds will be used to accelerate growth further given the strong tailwinds in youth leisure travel till the company concludes its series-A by June’22.

Rapidly expanding backpacker hostel brand, goSTOPS, has raised an additional USD 1 million bridge round within 6 months of the last million dollar Pre-Series-A round concluded early this year in June. Showing continued commitment, the round was funded by existing investors – The Chennai Angels, Mumbai Angels, Yuj Ventures, Lead Angels, 1Crowd, Indian Angel Network, Chandigarh Angels Network in addition to new angel investors including Rohit Chanana of Sarcha Advisors.

The additional bridge round will help the company accelerate growth further given the strong tailwinds in youth leisure travel till it concludes its Series-A by June’22. The freshly infused funds will be utilized to aggressively acquire new budget hotels and rapidly grow its presence across the country. This move is in line with the renewed and rapid demand for strong post covid leisure travel that the youth are embarking on.

The company aims to disrupt and grab leading market share in the USD 12 billion Indian youth leisure travel opportunity. goSTOPS leases and transforms budget hotels and operates them as backpacker hostels. The community and design-led hotel transformation enables the company to harness efficiencies of shared economy and make high-quality youth-focused stays accessible within Gen-Z friendly budget of INR 500/- per night.

Pallavi Agarwal, Founder and CEO, goSTOPS commenting on the bridge funding said, “goSTOPS has grown 2.5X QoQ to ARR of USD 2.5 million in October 2021. The new bridge funding will allow us to leverage the opportunity presented to us in a post pandemic India to grow to USD 5 million ARR by June 2022 – that’s 5x YoY growth through a pandemic. We intend to cater to the exponentially growing market of youth travellers in India, who have stepped out to explore the country after a very stress-inducing two years of the pandemic.”

K. Chandran, CEO, The Chennai Angels, said, “We are extremely happy with the growth that goSTOPS has achieved since our last investment in the company. The strong validation of the product-market fit and business model resilience through the two covid waves as well as aggressive founders’ mindset to capitalise on the ‘down-time’ during the pandemic to pursue unprecedented growth were the key reasons for us to re-invest and lead this round.”

Nandini Mansighka, Co-Founder & CEO, Mumbai Angels Network, said, “Lack of quality travel accommodation for youth is a big market-need gap and at a price-point of INR 500 per night, goSTOPS is focussed on addressing the belly of this large market. The company, with its strong consumer understanding and full-stack operator model, has clearly found a way of solving this problem at scale. Brand’s high customer satisfaction score and strong unit economics while rapidly expanding through the pandemic were reasons enough to convince us to further invest and up our commitment in goSTOPS.”

Operating across 27 destinations in India, goSTOPS has hosted over 500K guests.  To cater to the unique preferences of this target audience, the company also recently launched its experiences wing goEXPERIENCES to offer treks, multi-destination tours and in-destination experiences.

About goSTOPS:

goSTOPS is India’s fastest growing backpacker hostel brand co-founded by Pallavi Agarwal and Pankaj Parwanda. The company today has a geographical footprint in some of the major tourist spots in the country such as Agra, Alleppey, Amritsar, Bir, Dalhousie, New Delhi, Fort Kochi, Goa, Jaipur, Leh, Manali, Mcleodganj, Mumbai, Munnar, Mussoorie, Naggar, Palampur, Rishikesh, Udaipur, and Varanasi. goSTOPS has hosted more than 500,000 travellers across its 27 destinations.  The audience is typically between 18 to 30 years old and comprises of a cross-section of solo travellers, group travellers, backpackers, digital nomads, and individuals seeking interesting stay or work from hostel options. It is a full-stack operator brand that leases and transforms budget hotels and operates them as backpacker hostels. In 2021, goSTOPS launched goEXPERIENCES that offers curated trips by experts, to inspire travellers, with itineraries designed around their chosen activity, including cycling, trekking, multi-adventure, cultural or historical. goSTOPS aim is to focus on the cultural revolution catering to the Gen-Z and create an accommodation brand they can call their own.

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Press Release

UserTesting Highlights How Inflation Is Squeezing Indian Consumers, 75 Percent Join The Gig Economy To Meet Increased Cost Of Living

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Inflation Is Squeezing Indian Consumers
  • On an average, 3 out of 5 Indians are witnessing the highest impact of inflation on entertainment and petrol expenditures
  • In order to save money, 65 percent of Indians are now buying their necessary products from generic brands
  • View consumer responses to the impact of inflation

India, July 13, 2022: UserTesting (NYSE: USER), a leader in video-based human insight, conducted a survey to understand the effects of the rising inflation on Indians’ spending habits and personal finances. As per the survey findings, over 95 percent of Indians reported that growing inflation is directly impacting their daily and monthly expenditure.

A host of cost pressures such as rising commodity prices, global supply disruptions, and more has been translated to end consumers in the form of elevated prices for goods and services across the board. Therefore, to meet basic needs, Indians are cutting back on their everyday expenses to meet their basic needs. About 60 percent of Indian respondents indicated that they are cutting back on entertainment and leisure activities such as movies, eating out, staycations, etc. Unsurprisingly, the respondents also mentioned minimizing personal car travel and opting for public transport to reduce their expenditure on petrol.

Mounting prices of essential commodities

Indians are facing the brunt of inflation majorly on petrol prices, as mentioned by 100 percent of the respondents during the survey. With essential grocery items such as bread witnessing a sharp rise in prices, 90 percent of the respondents have reported that it is becoming a burden to keep up with the inflation storm. Adding to the trouble, some respondents mentioned not having received any salary appraisals in the past year, leading to a reduction in personal savings for many.

Gig economy takes center stage amidst rising inflation

As inflation heats up, former motivations for side hustles, such as paying off debt and saving, have been replaced by a more pressing need: making ends meet. According to the survey, 75 percent of Indian respondents revealed that they are resorting to secondary sources of income to keep up with the increased cost of living. The popular options that were mentioned included freelancing and trading among other side gigs.

Indians replace their go-to shops: from big brands to local brands

Interestingly, the survey found that on average, 65 percent of Indians are buying from generic/local brands instead of name brands so as to save money. Stating that most generic brands are now offering the same quality of a product at a cheaper price, more than half of the Indians have shifted their focus on local brands, especially for purchases such as clothes and grocery items that are now being bought from local kirana shops.

About UserTesting

UserTesting (NYSE: USER) has fundamentally changed the way organizations get insights from customers with fast, opt-in feedback and experience capture technology. The UserTesting® Human Insight Platform taps into our global network of real people and generates video-based recorded experiences, so anyone in an organization can directly ask questions, hear what users say, see what they mean, and understand what it’s actually like to be a customer. Unlike approaches that track user behavior and then try to infer what that behavior means, UserTesting reduces guesswork and brings customer experience data to life with human insight. UserTesting has approximately 2,500 customers, including more than half of the world’s top 100 most valuable brands according to Forbes. UserTesting is headquartered in San Francisco, California. To learn more, visit www.usertesting.com.

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Investment

Nikola to Participate in Upcoming Investor Conferences

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Nikola to Participate in Upcoming Investor Conferences

Nikola Corporation (Nasdaq: NKLA), a global leader in zero-emissions transportation and energy infrastructure solutions, today announced its participation in the following investor conferences:

Kim Brady, CFO, will participate in a fireside chat at the Evercore ISI Global Clean Energy & Transition Technologies Summit on June 15, 2022, at 2 p.m. ET

ABOUT NIKOLA CORPORATION

Nikola Corporation is globally transforming the transportation industry. As a designer and manufacturer of zero-emission battery-electric and hydrogen-electric vehicles, electric vehicle drivetrains, vehicle components, energy storage systems, and hydrogen station infrastructure, Nikola is driven to revolutionize the economic and environmental impact of commerce as we know it today. Founded in 2015, Nikola Corporation is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. For more information, visit http://www.nikolamotor.com or Twitter @nikolamotor.

SOURCE Nikola Corporation

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Press Release

2022 Zhejiang (HUZHOU) Export Online Fair (Europe-Textiles)

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2022 ZHEJIANG HUZHOU EXPORT ONLINE FAIR EUROPE TEXTILES

China Council for the Promotion of International Trade Huzhou Committee and the China Chamber of International Commerce Huzhou Chamber of Commerce are organizing the online fair-2022 ZHEJIANG (HUZHOU) EXPORT ONLINE FAIR (EUROPE-TEXTILES) will be held online continually for 4 days from the  13th of June till the 17th of June 2022.

Facing the international epidemic situation, in order to promote the trade between Europe and Huzhou, Zhejiang in China, the 2022 ZHEJIANG (HUZHOU) EXPORT ONLINE FAIR (EUROPE-TEXTILES) will be held online.

This online fair is an international platform to help European buyers meet with professional Huzhou textiles enterprises. With abundant experience in holding expos, the Huzhou fair created the original mode of “internet + expo” in China’s exhibition field while is still keeping improving and upgrading it to a higher level. The aim of the exhibition is to provide a comprehensive overview of the global market and at the same time to offer the best possible stage for the high proportion of strong Chinese suppliers and the best European buyers.

At the exhibition there will be at least 40 quality exhibitors, the B2B Huzhou Expo will be completely free for European buyers. The exhibition will be held on the new online platform for the fair https://efair.zjseek.com/web/#/exhibition

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