Youth Hostel Brand goSTOPS Secures Rs 35 Cr in Series A Funding Led by Blume Ventures to Scale Across 100 Locations

• Funding to fuel 4X expansion, tech upgrades & enhanced experiences for young travellers
• The funding round also saw participation from 1Crowd along with other existing investors

goSTOPS, India’s leading youth travel hostel brand, has raised INR 35 Crore ($4.2 million) in its Series A funding led by Blume Ventures with continued support from co-lead investor 1Crowd. Other existing investors, including Mumbai Angels, Chennai Angels, Indian Angel Network, Lead Angels, and Yuj Ventures, also participated in the round, reaffirming their confidence in goSTOPS' vision and its strong growth trajectory.

With this fresh infusion of equity capital, goSTOPS is set to expand its capacity from 2,500 to 10,000 beds across 100 locations in the next 24 months, achieving 4X growth. The funding will be used to strengthen operations, enhance technology, and elevate the social and experiential aspects of its existing properties, reinforcing goSTOPS as the preferred travel and lifestyle brand for India’s youth. In addition, the company is also finalising debt partnerships to expand its war chest for the brand’s expansion.

Founded by Pallavi Agarwal and Pankaj Parwanda, goSTOPS has redefined travel for India’s youth. Over the past few years, the company has demonstrated remarkable resilience, scaling rapidly despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, as travel surges and young travellers increasingly choose hostels over hotels, goSTOPS is leading this shift with its vibrant, community-driven spaces.

Pallavi Agarwal, Founder & CEO at goSTOPS

Pankaj Parwanda, Co-Founder, goSTOPS

Commenting on the fundraise, Pallavi Agarwal, Founder & CEO at goSTOPS, said, "At goSTOPS, we are redefining how young travellers experience India—offering vibrant, social, and design-led spaces for the new generation. This investment reflects the trust our investors have in our vision and the category we are building. With their continued support, we are set to scale goSTOPS into India’s most preferred youth travel brand—by expanding our footprint while staying true to our promise of making the transformative power of travel accessible to young Indians.

Talking about the investment, Ashish Fafadia, Partner at Blume Ventures said, “goSTOPS has built a category-defining brand by combining deep operational expertise, smart asset management, and tech-driven efficiencies. Their ability to optimise unit economics while scaling rapidly is a testament to the team’s tenacity and strategic vision. We are excited to back their journey as they continue to expand and transform the youth travel experience in India.”

Anil Gudibande, co-founder of 1Crowd, who has co-lead the funding, said, “As an early backer of goSTOPS, we always believed that the brand was more than just a hostel chain — it’s a youth brand with the potential to shape travel and lifestyle choices. The founders’ ingenuity, and deep understanding of their audience have been key to their success. Their team isn’t just about asset utilisation; it’s about creating experiences that resonate with young travellers. This belief has been central to us leading the company's multiple rounds of equity financing, and we are now excited to see the next phase of their growth.”

According to market research, 70% of young travellers now prefer hostels over traditional hotels, underscoring the growing demand for the category. goSTOPS is leading this shift with its company-managed hostels, ensuring full control over service quality and customer experience. Designed for digital-native travellers, the brand creates dynamic spaces where guests can connect, grow, and explore new destinations together.

About goSTOPS:

goSTOPS is a leading youth travel hostel brand, redefining travel for youth with its vibrant, design-led social spaces.

Founded in 2014 by Pallavi Agarwal and Pankaj Parwanda, goSTOPS has rapidly expanded to 30+ locations, offering 2500+ beds designed for the new-age traveller.

More than just a place to stay, goSTOPS is a community-led, tech-first brand that creates immersive experiences for digital-native young travellers.

With bold aesthetics, dynamic social spaces, and seamless technology, it’s where exploration meets connection.

With the ethos of “goMORE. beMORE.”, goSTOPS empowers young adventurers to explore freely, connect deeply, and experience travel as a way of life

Hostel & PG Booking Platform ‘PGO’ Raises $2 Mn from New Investors; Launches 'PGO Prime'

Thinkwide’s PGO, Innovative Paying Guest, Hostel and Co-living booking service platform, announced today the addition of 2 new investors and its new ‘PGO Prime’ membership beneficial to their end customers. PGO also announced a fresh investor commitment of US$2M from the new investors.

Making the announcement Hari Krishna, Founder and CEO of PGO said “We are excited to announce new investment commitment from our investors– city based real estate veterans, Ektha’s Sreeni Musani and IRA Reality’s Narsi Reddy Posham. This reaffirms the investor's faith in our business model and the uniqueness of our product with super niche differentiation.”

[caption id="attachment_137439" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] ( Left to Right) - Hari Krishna, CEO, PGO, Sreeni Musani, Ektha (investor), Narsi Reddy Posham IRA Reality (Investor)[/caption]

Hari added, the new investments will help PGO consolidate its service offerings and lay more emphasis on enriching its technology platform, widening properties network, and foray into newer cities. Some key functions of the app include ease in handling with instant alerts to stay seekers and the providers, and also deals with both traditional and emerging co-living segments.

Explaining where the fresh round of funds will get used Hari stated, additional investments will help us meet our ambitious target, which is by 2025, PGO will attain the status of being India’s most admired co-living booking platform for students and young working professionals eyeing 1.8 million online bookings.

New Investors Sreeni Musani of Ektha and Narsi Reddy of IRA Reality sounded upbeat about the prospects of PGO and profitability growth plan. They remarked it is an exciting marketplace, given the cross migration of people and difficulties of finding acceptable, verified, co-living, hostel and PGs becoming a challenge for today’s millennials.

“As investors, above and beyond business model, the innovation, and problem-solving technology solutions excite us before we invest in anycompany. PGO is perfect in that manner.” Investors Sreeni and Narsi added.

Besides monetary funding, PGO’s strategic angel investors Sai Korrapati, SS Karthikeya, Sanjay Reddy and Anil Kumar continue to play a leading role in providing strategic and operational expertise in growing PGO. Unveiling PGO Prime Membership, the team reiterated, our Prime members receive multiple benefits, gets 10% savings on all bookings with an access to exclusive lightning deals.

[caption id="attachment_137440" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Harikrishna CEO, PGO[/caption]

After its launch in July 2018 PGO has expanded field operations to top 4 cities with 70% foot print and added 13,072 Properties, 633,624 Beds, presence in 190 Cities, 157,199 Users, recorded 205,782 Total Stay Days. The pocket-friendly PGO app available on Google Play Store and Apple Store also registered a staggering 1 Lakh + downloads.

According to home hunting surveys, 99% of the hostel and PG bookings are offline and ‘PGO’ is the first mobile app to provide dependable, verified online co-living, Hostel, PG bookings, and payment services effectively. By the year 2020, Thinkwide aim is to introduce PGO services to 10 more additional cities with more than 90% footprint in India and add 10,000 more properties on its mobile and web platforms.

PGO App is a staying search problem solving innovation from Thinkwide, is India’s first Hostel and PG Accommodation finding technology start-up in a peer-to-peer market place that connects stay seekers and the providers. PGO showcases verified properties, and empower users through factual data such as guest reviews, stay tariffs to find the suitable and pocket-friendly stay options.

Youth Traveller Hostel Startup goStops Raises Funding from Prominent Angels

goStops, India’s fastest growing premium chain of youth traveller hostels, has raised an undisclosed amount of funds as part of its recent funding round from eminent Angel investors.

The round also saw participation from investors like Mr. Nitish Mittersain (Founder and MD of Nazara Games), Mr. Sorabh Agarwal (Ex-MD at Copal Partners), Mr. Sameer Walia (Founder and ex-MD at The Smart Cube),Mr. Rohit Shankar (Co-Founder of Dimdim.com), Mr. Sunil Kumar Singhvi (Owner at South Handlooms) and other senior corporate executives.

Delhi based goStops is planning to expand their presence across the country by doubling their bed capacity within the next 12 months. goStopsalso plans to utilize these funds to enhance its product offerings through investments in technology &training, add new revenue streams, strengthen its marketing and build team to handle the next phase of growth.

goStops is a chain of youth traveller hostels in India having presence in 13 cities with about 800 beds capacity. Besides the basic services like high-quality beds in air-conditioned dorms and private rooms, 24x7 CCTV/Security, 24x7 Front Desk, 24x7 Café etc., these hostels offer several facilities like mini theatre, foosball / pool table, aesthetically designed work and lounge areas etc.in their common areas and many activities to socialize and explore the destination together with other fellow young travellers.



“Currently, short stay options (hotels, guest houses etc.) available within youth budget are of poor & unpredictable quality and not youth friendly. We aim to solve this problem for the youth by offering traveller hostels which are High quality, affordable, social and experiential. Growing number of youth prefer community living (fostering growth of co-living and co-working) and they are willing to share rooms and facilities for greater quality accommodation. Thus, goStops plans to cater to the rapidly growing aspirational demands of the youth in this category” said Pallavi Agarwal, Co-Founder & CEO, goStops.

goStops is a full stack youth traveller hostel provider. goStops leases, manages and franchises real estate assets to design, transform, market, sell and operate youth hostels under its brand in locations where the youth travels for business or leisure. goStops aims to become a preferred youth brand synonymous with great quality travel and living spaces.

HostelDunia - A new portal that provides Hostel Information

HostelDunia.com is a new Hyderabad based portal, that provides users with with information regarding hostel facilities available across various areas. The information provided include facilities, food menu, address, pictures, reviews, and ratings. This makes it easier to compare available hostel facilities. Currently listing are available for Hyderabad only.

The search function on the portal is very helpful as you can narrow down your search result by using the various search filters like pricing, room type and facilities. All listing also come with a location display on a Google map, making it easier to figure out the exact location of the facility.

As of now the portal has more than 1000 hostel registered to hostels and also provide premium service of dedicated web domains to registered hostels.

Hostel owners can register with the site and list their hostel with details regarding facilities and pricing along with images. The portal also has a page called Hostel Life, where users can submit a story about their experience and every month the best story will be published on the site.

The portal is self-funded and currently is in beta mode and apparently Google ads can be seen as one of their revenue generation system, which I personally believe is not good for newly launched portal both as SEO perspective and user engagement as it divert the users' perspective toward the portal.

Although as far as I can see it is first of kind of portal in India which caters hostel looking people and to search, rate and share their experiences and it will interesting to see if it is available for more cities in India that will be more of accomplishment for the portal.