GoSTOPS, a backpacker hostel brand, announced that it had raised $1 million in a pre-Series A round led by Indian Angel Network (IAN) and Yuj Ventures, the private investing arm of Xander Group founder Sid Yog's family office. This round at IAN was led by KRS Jamwal, Uday Chatterjee, and Mitesh Shah.
The Chennai Angels, Chandigarh Angels, Lead Angels, Mumbai Angels Network, LetsVenture, and goSTOPS' existing lead investor 1Crowd also participated in the round.
“This pandemic has challenged lives in an unprecedented manner. Despite that, we saw a robust demand recovery from our young travellers post the first wave, and the same is happening today. This has helped us validate strong market-need fundamentals and business model resilience. This is also an opportune time for us to aggressively expand supply across the country to cater to the needs of the ever-increasing number of Gen Z travellers," says, Pallavi Agarwal, CEO and Co-founder, goSTOPS.
The funds will be used to aggressively grow the startup's supply over the next 12 months, as well as to invest in marketing and technology. It had previously raised funding in a round led by 1Crowd Fund and from angel investors, including Nazara Games founder Nitish Mittersain.
goSTOPS primarily serves the Gen Z demographic. The brand leverages the efficiencies of the shared economy through community and design-led hotel transformation to make a youth-focused stay accessible within a Gen Z-friendly budget of Rs 500 per night.
Padmaja Ruparel, Co-founder of Indian Angel Network, said, “We are living in unique times. While work-from-home has evolved into work-from-anywhere for Gen Z, leisure travel also takes on a whole new meaning in the age of restricted travel. We believe goSTOPS has identified an extremely large and promising segment of youth travellers who deserve better value for their money.”
Pallavi Agarwal and Pankaj Parwanda co-founded goSTOPS in 2014, and it has a geographical footprint in some of the country's major tourist destinations, including Agra, Alleppey, Amritsar, Bir, Dalhousie, New Delhi, Fort Kochi, Goa, Jaipur, Leh, Manali, Mcleodganj, Mumbai, Munnar, Mussoorie, Naggar, Palampur, Rishikesh, Udaipur, and Varanasi.
According to Yuj Ventures, "Pallavi and Pankaj are passionate entrepreneurs who have shepherded their hostel brand through the worst pandemic the world has seen in recent times. We believe that they can rapidly scale goSTOPS to meet the needs and expectations of the aspiring Indian youth, and we look forward to them achieving their entrepreneurial goals."
