TravelGuru.com is India’s hotels & holidays Booking website.
Back in 2005, Ashwin Damera, a student at Harvard Business School (HBS), had a bright idea. What India’s booming e-commerce industry lacked, he believed, was a comprehensive travel portal. His idea won him second place in the classroom business plan contest; the winner of which was a proposed plus size lingerie company. He doesn’t think that one came through, but a year later Travelguru did, thanks partly to generous cheques from three unexpected investors – Damera’s own classmates.
Ganesh Rengaswamy graduated from IT-BHU top of my class with the BHU medal. Out of BHU, He went to Indian Oil Corporation and realized within a few months that it wasn’t for him – he loved the field experience though and would never forget the day their marketing installation caught fire. He also started investing in public markets as a hobby and it turned into something more serious down the line. After IIM-Calcutta, He started with Infosys in 1999 and soon moved to Silicon Valley in Northern California across various roles including managing clients, business development and program management. In 2003, he got more drawn towards entrepreneurship (failed attempt) and venture investing and decided to go to HBS (Harvard Business School), which is considered the bastion for both.
At HBS, totally coincidental and culmination of one midnight conversation between Ashwin and Ganesh was primary reason of starting Travelguru, which now become one of the best travel portal in India.
In December 2007, Travelguru had acquired Desiya.com. Travelocity had aquired Travelguru. Then Yatra has aquired it from Travelocity on July 2012.
