Mumbai Angels Network invests in goSTOPS, a backpacker hostel brand.

 

View this email in your browser Mumbai Angels Network invests in goSTOPs, an Indian backpacker hostel brand raising an additional USD 1 mn 9th, December, 2021: Rapidly expanding backpacker hostel brand, goSTOPS, has raised an additional USD 1 mn bridge round within 6 months of the last million dollar Pre-Series-A round concluded earlier this year in June. Showing continued commitment, existing investors participated in this round, namely Mumbai Angels Network, The Chennai Angels, Yuj Ventures, Lead Angels, 1Crowd, Indian Angel Network along with new 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 bn Indian youth leisure travel opportunities. 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 the shared economy and make high-quality youth-focused stays accessible within a Gen-Z friendly budget of INR 500 per night. Nandini Mansighka, Co-Founder & CEO, Mumbai Angels Network, said, “Today, travel enthusiasts seek exciting, high-quality travel experiences at more affordable prices. 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.” 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 provide experience-driven stays for travelers and 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." Co-Founded by Pallavi Agarwal and Pankaj Parwanda in 2014, goSTOPS aims to provide affordable, fun, and unique stays to India’s youth travelers/backpackers. 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 Mumbai Angels: Started in 2006, Mumbai Angels Network is India's premier platform focused on new venture investing. Mumbai Angels today has a 190+ strong portfolio across sectors and cities across India. Of the overall portfolio the platform has exited/ secured the next round of funding for 100+ of them. Today, the platform has 650+ investors spread across 40+ Indian & Global cities