Hourly Hotel Booking Firm MiStay Raises funding from ah! Ventures Angel Platform, others

An online hotel booking company that offers booking hotels by the pack of hours, MiStay has raised an undisclosed amount of investment through ah! Ventures angel platform and a group of investors led by Hyderabad based ex-entrepreneur, Sumit Nagpal. MiStay will utilize the fund to grow the leadership team and also to build up the brand.

Founded in 2016 by alumni of IIT Madras, Sandeep Jaiswal & Pranav Prabhakar, MiStay had previously raised the first round of seed investment in late 2017. Later, the company pivoted from the initial focus on the B2B corporate market to the consumer market in mid 2018. Since then, MiStay has grown 5 times and hit operational profitability in June this year.

“Travellers today no longer want to plan their trip based on the hotels’ check-in time. The hotel industry is poised to transform to meet these evolving travellers’ needs. This transition, however, requires disrupting the age-old technological ecosystem in hotel industry and raising operational capabilities of hotels. We are building the entire ecosystem ground up to enable the flexible hotel stay and be the leader in this market”, said Sandeep Jaiswal, the Co-Founder & CEO at MiStay.

The average hotel occupancy rate in India stands at around 65%, thus the unsold hotel rooms constitute around 6 Billion Dollars of missed revenue opportunity for hotels. MiStay creates a new demand of customers who require hotels with early check-in, short-stay or day-use rooms which hotels can tap into to maximize their occupancy and revenue.

“The micro-stay model brings a unique revenue optimization opportunity for the hotels. Our product helps hotels realize their full revenue potential by unlocking the value in hotel inventory during the hours it remains unutilized. Hotels can in fact run at more than 100% occupancy”, said Pranav Prabhakar, the Co-Founder & CTO at MiStay.

MiStay is currently operational in 100 cities with around 1500 hotel partners. Unlike other counterparts who focus on couple-friendly hotels, MiStay sees business travellers or travellers having long layover as the primary target audience. The partner hotels of MiStay include many premium hotel brands such as The Park, Radisson, Holiday Inn as well as mid-scale hotel chains such as Lemon Tree, Mango Hotels, Mint Hotels, 1589 Hotels, Treebo, and others.

“Currently we have divided a full-day into 3 smaller slots of a few hours which costs as low as around 30% of the full-day tariff. We are working closely with the hotels and aim to bring even more flexibility to travellers. Obsession with customer experience has been and will remain the guiding principle for our every move”, added Nupur Singh, who leads customer success at MiStay.

Abhijeet Kumar, Founding Partner at ah! Ventures said “Hotel booking is a very large market and the unique approach of MiStay for inventory optimization will change the way hotel industry operates. The market opportunity and the efficiency with which the founding team has scaled the business so far, made the investment decision a no brainer. We are very excited to be backing their vision.”

About Mistay

MiStay is an online hotel booking company that offers booking hotels by the pack of hours. MiStay is an attempt to empower people to achieve their travel dream. Bringing flexibility into hotel bookings is just the beginning. We aim to eventually disrupt and drive innovation in every facet of the travel industry. We aspire to be the leader of the next generation of travel.

Hourly Hotel Booking Platform MiStay Raises Seed Funding Via Axilor Ventures, Others

Bangalore-based online hotel reservations startup MiStay, has raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from Axilor Ventures and a group of angels, a press statement said.

The startup will use the freshly raised funds for hiring talent and marketing, apart from expanding operations.

Founded in 2016 by Indian Institute of Technology Madras alumni Jaiswal and Pranav Prabhakar, MiStay is a travel-tech company that allows booking a hotel room by pack of hours with flexible check-in & check-out time.

In April 2016, Mistay was launched in just 2 cities (Delhi & Gurgaon) and with 12 hotels. Soon in next five months, the company launched its operations in eight more cities.

Currently, MiStay is operational in 30 locations and claims to have around 400 hotels on its network. Its partner hotels include branded chains such as The Park Hotels, Pride Hotels, Sarovar Hotels, Keys Hotels, Treebo Hotels and Mango Hotels. MiStay claims that its customer base has grown seven times in the last six months.
MiStay’s model is unique in that it offers slot-wise hotel bookings. A full day is divided into three slots: morning (8:00 am – 11:00 am); day (12:00 noon – 7:00 pm); and night (8:00 pm – 7:00 am). The customer can book any combination of consecutive slots based on need.

Asutosh Upadhyay, head of programs at Axilor, said in the statement, “MiStay has taken a customer-centric approach to hotel bookings… While giving travellers the best options, they are unlocking value in hotel inventory, making this a win-win solution for individuals and corporates.”

Axilor Ventures is led by Infosys co-founders Kris Gopalakrishnan and SD Shibulal.

Hourly Hotel Booking Platform MiStay Raises Seed Funding Via Axilor Ventures, Others

Bangalore-based online hotel reservations startup MiStay, has raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from Axilor Ventures and a group of angels, a press statement said.

The startup will use the freshly raised funds for hiring talent and marketing, apart from expanding operations.

Founded in 2016 by Indian Institute of Technology Madras alumni Jaiswal and Pranav Prabhakar, MiStay is a travel-tech company that allows booking a hotel room by pack of hours with flexible check-in & check-out time.

In April 2016, Mistay was launched in just 2 cities (Delhi & Gurgaon) and with 12 hotels. Soon in next five months, the company launched its operations in eight more cities.

Currently, MiStay is operational in 30 locations and claims to have around 400 hotels on its network. Its partner hotels include branded chains such as The Park Hotels, Pride Hotels, Sarovar Hotels, Keys Hotels, Treebo Hotels and Mango Hotels. MiStay claims that its customer base has grown seven times in the last six months.
MiStay’s model is unique in that it offers slot-wise hotel bookings. A full day is divided into three slots: morning (8:00 am – 11:00 am); day (12:00 noon – 7:00 pm); and night (8:00 pm – 7:00 am). The customer can book any combination of consecutive slots based on need.

Asutosh Upadhyay, head of programs at Axilor, said in the statement, “MiStay has taken a customer-centric approach to hotel bookings… While giving travellers the best options, they are unlocking value in hotel inventory, making this a win-win solution for individuals and corporates.”

Axilor Ventures is led by Infosys co-founders Kris Gopalakrishnan and SD Shibulal.

IIT Madras Alumni Startup Is Breaking The Age Old Traditions Of Hospitality By Providing Hotel Booking By The Hour

Do you remember the days when you have to hire a cab for the entire day even though you needed to use it for a few hours? I guess no. After the dent made by services like Ola and Uber in the cab industry, it is hard to imagine booking a cab for an entire day when you need it only to go to work.

Unfortunately, this has not changed when it comes to hotel booking. Travelling is something which everyone loves. But what makes a travel costly; is the stay at a hotel. Even if you are travelling to give your exam or attend any business meeting for which you need a room just for few hours, you have to do a full day booking (12 noon – 12 noon) in a hotel, which in turns make your travel cost rise.

Sandeep Jaiswal and Pranav Prabhakar, after experiencing the same thing they felt it is unethical and unfair to be charged for an entire day when they use a room for only a few hours. And this is where they stumbled upon the idea for catering the need and founded MiStay, with the aim of breaking the age-old traditions and changing the rules of hospitality to make travel flexible and fair to travellers.

MiStay is a travel tech company which allows booking hotel rooms by the pack of hours with flexible check-in and check-out times.

“The problem with rigid full day booking affects every kind of travellers. MiStay allows travellers can book a room for an appropriate combination of slots and pay only for the time stayed. It offers, booking based on slots (8 am – 11 am (Morning slot), 12 noon – 7 pm (Day slot), 8 pm – 7 am (Night slot)). This not only fills the needs of frequent business travellers as well as leisure travellers who require room for less than a day or with flexible timings but also gives hotels a channel to increase their occupancy and revenue per available room,” says Pranav Prabhakar, Co-founder and CTO, MiStay.

Meet The Innovators

Sandeep Jaiswal who is an IIT Madras alumnus has 2 years of experience in management consulting. Most recently, he worked with strategy consulting firm, Essex Lake Group, where he devised profit enhancement solutions for one of the largest banks in South Africa, and also filed 2 patents for developing internal analytical tools. Prior to joining Essex, he co-founded a for-profit social enterprise AmrutDhara which was aimed at reducing the environmental hazard from bottled water by providing a sustainable alternative.

Whereas, Pranav Prabhakar, a computer science graduate from IIT Madras with over 3 years of experience in design and product development has worked as software engineer at LinkedIn. Prior to joining LinkedIn, he had founded a new media startup, Cinemagrapher, where he developed an innovative product to help photographers and marketers automatically create cinemagraphs from short videos. Earlier, he had also co-founded HireFellas, a curated marketplace for photographers.

At MiStay, Jaiswal is responsible for driving the overall vision of the company to ensure customer delight while leading the on-ground operations, partnerships and business development for the sustainable growth of the company. Whereas Prabhakar leads the technology and design to build innovative solutions for customers while making sure that all efforts are grounded in user-centered principles.

Business Mockup

MiStay has partnered with around 115 hotels across 8 cities in India (Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Pune, Gurgaon). The hotels range from 2 star to 5 star hotels including some chains like Pride hotels, Mango hotels, etc. With an initial investment of Rs 4 lacs, the founders developed the entire platform in-house. Launched in April 2016, the website is the consumer facing portal through which one can make a booking at a hotel.

“We have also developed MiStay Extranet, which is a software provided to the partner hotels for managing room rates and inventory. Later in October 2016, we have launched MiStay for Business, a portal developed for corporates, where the travel managers in any company can make bookings on behalf of the company employees,” says Prabhakar.

Duo has also developed the effective payment mode. They have 2 models of payment- Pay at Hotel, where customer makes direct payment at the hotel in which TAC is collected by MiStay for all bookings for a month at the end of the month. Another is Pay Online, where customer pays online to MiStay at the time of booking. The net amount after deducting TAC is transferred to the hotel before the guest checks in.

“In case of last minute booking or a booking happens on a non working day, payment is transferred on the day of check in or next working day. Hotels can opt for either or both modes of payment,” informs Prabhakar.

MiStay takes around 20% of the booking amount as referral commission from the partner hotels on the bookings done through the platform.

What Makes Them Stand Strong In The Market

If we look at the figuers, hotel industry in India is a $20 billion market and MiStay is targeting the business travel segment primarily, which is estimated to constitute around $12-14 billion of the total hotel booking market. In India, this market has just started getting recognized. And various OTAs like Goibibo, MakeMyTrip, etc. as well as some other startups working on the same concept are the key competitors for MiStay. But if we talk about the global market, startup competes with players like DayUse.com and ByHours.com.

“Going forward, direct tie-ups with corporates to manage their employees’ business travel will be a key customer acquisition channel. Hence, the offline travel agents serving the corporates would be competitor in that market,” says Prabhakar.

Despite competing with companies like MayMyTrip, Goibibo etc. there USP, extreme due-diligence in partnering with hotels is something which makes founders stand strong in the market.

“Apart from the two core pillars – paying only for time stayed, and flexible check-in/check-out times, another key aspect that differentiates MiStay from any other player in the industry is the extreme due-diligence in partnering with hotels. All the partner hotels are strategically located near key business hubs of the cities or near the transit areas like airports and railway stations. More than 75% of the MiStay partner hotels have Tripadvisor rating more than 4 out of 5,” says Prabhakar.

Future Map

In the short span of time, this Bengaluru-based startup has seen 36% of repeated customers. MiStay, which was one of the 10 startups nationally selected for Axillor Ventures Accelerator program intend to make their every customer their brand evangelist by ensuring them the best hotel experience.

“We have already started seeing sudden growth in last few weeks. We have seen more than 200% month-on-month growth, and this is likely to increase multi-folds as we start tapping various growth channels,” concludes Prabhakar..

Our Take

Online penetration in hotel booking in India is only around 20% and if we talk about corporate hotel booking market in India, it is very fragmented, unorganized and largely served offline. However, the industry is slowing moving towards becoming more online. With the help off mushrooming startups like Mistay, Self-Booking Technology (SBTs) are going to be the trend in corporate travel market in coming years.

Hourly Hotel booking Company, MiStay, Launches Operations in 8 Cities

MiStay, a hospitality start-up which allows booking rooms by pack of hours, has expanded its presence to 8 metro cities in India. They are Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Pune and Gurgaon.

In these cities, MiStay has partnered with around 50 hotels which have been handpicked using stringent quality criteria and offer booking of rooms by hours. These hotels cover all price range from budget hotels to 5 star hotels.

“This development is consistent with our focus to cater to the business travel segment. Business travellers often require room for a few hours but they often end up paying for an entire day. We, thus feel that the accommodation expense of a company can be reduced by more than 40%. We are now open to tie-ups with corporates, and our growth in 8 key business cities will enable us to meet the diverse hotel accommodation needs of our partners”, said Sandeep, the Co-founder and CEO of MiStay.

MiStay was launched in April 2016 in 2 cities (Delhi & Gurgaon) and with 12 hotels. The idea of MiStay was born when Sandeep was denied the room even though it was booked online during his trip to Amritsar as he had reached the hotel before the standard check-in time of 12 noon. Even though the room was used only for a few hours, he ended up paying for a one and half day due to the rigid check-in/ check-out timings.

There was once a time when we had to hire a cab for an entire day even if we needed it only for a few hours. Services like Ola and Uber have made such a dent in the cab industry that it has become difficult to imagine such a scenario. Unfortunately, when it comes to hotel booking, people still book a room for an entire day even when they need it for a few hours.

“It is unethical and unfair to be charged for an entire day when we use a room for only few hours. We started MiStay with the aim of breaking the age-old traditions and changing the rules of hospitality to make travel flexible and fair to travellers," said Sandeep.

The average hotel occupancy rate in India is less than 60%. This concept of micro-stay not only benefits travellers but also gives hotels a new line of business. Hotels can increase their revenue by tapping into a new customer segment. This makes it a win-win proposition for both travellers and hotels.

While the benefit of offering rooms by hours is obvious, it does come with logistical challenges and operational complexities. “We have developed an easy-to-use extranet software for hoteliers that has enabled them to update room rates and availability in real time. They can select the hours and the rates they want to sell a room at to optimize hotel inventory. Our technology ensures seamless experience for customers as well as hoteliers,” added Pranav, the Co-founder & CTO of MiStay.

Another key aspect that differentiates MiStay from other players in the industry is the extreme duediligence in partnering with hotels. All the partner hotels are strategically located near key business hubs in the cities or near transit areas such as airports & railway stations. More than 75% of the MiStay partner hotels have a Tripadvisor rating of more than 4.

“We also have to deal with the stigma associated with booking room by hours. People often think that such concept only attracts couples. We are confident to break the taboo with booking room by hours and be the trend-setter.”, said Sandeep.