Paytm’s Vijay Sharma invests in hotel chain startup Treebo’s $1.4m round

Treebo Hotels, an Indian budget hotel chain startup, announced that it has raised 100 million rupee (a little under US$1.4 million) in an angel round led by Deepak Parayanken, deputy managing director of Mozambique Holdings – a conglomerate based in the East African country.

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Angel investors including Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Rebel Foods co-founder and CEO Jaydeep Barman also participated in the round.

Founded in 2015, Treebo operates on a full inventory-based model where it takes over the operations of its partner hotels, which then run like franchises.

The company recently launched a software-as-a-service business called Hotel Superhero, under which it offers a cloud-based hotel management software for independent hotels and hotel chains.

As Covid-19 continues to rattle the hospitality sector, the company has also begun running Treebo Hygiene Shield, a process it’s put in place to tighten its safety protocols and regularly audit its hotels.

Currently, Treebo has a portfolio of more than 600 hotels in over 100 cities, according to the company.

This latest investment comes after the startup closed US$6 million in a funding round earlier this month from Matrix Partners India, SAIF Partners, Bertelsmann India Investments, and Ward Ferry.

A major player that it’s up against in the sector is SoftBank-backed Oyo, which secured US$807 million in March this year from SVF India and RA Hospitality as part of its ongoing US$1.5 billion round.

Currency converted from Indian rupee to US dollar: US$1 = 73.82 rupee.