“We were on a revenue run-rate of over $200 million. Our growth since January this year has been phenomenal, and we are already at 8 times our January numbers. We turned EBITDA profitable this July,” Varun Khona, Co-Founder and CEO said get out off.
“This growth will come after we expand to 300 cities across the country,” Khona told ET.
Founded by Khona (CEO) in 2014, Suren Sultania (COO) and Vikram Jit Singh (CTO), New York-headquartered Headout has helped nearly nine million people in 190 countries with their customized travel plans in 30+ cities.
As a managed and mobile-first experiences marketplace, unlike existing aggregators, Headout leverages technology and its operational know-how to proactively standardize, upgrade and curate experiences provided by its partners around the world .
With the strengthening of travel rebound, the company has doubled the demand for domestic and local travel that used to be a minority pre-pandemic.
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“Covid effectively reset the counters and the headout is now leading the recovery charge,” Khona said.
The fund will help the company develop its product line to create state-of-the-art solutions for a traveler’s post-pandemic needs and invest in business, marketing and operations teams.
Headout is hiring an additional 150+ employees worldwide. It is also looking to hire travel, entertainment and AR-focused startups to help shape its future direction.
“With this round and our profitability milestone, all of our focus is on expansion and long-term investments to aid travel recovery,” Khona said.
“Given the low online penetration for travel experiences, we see a significant opportunity to digitize the sector for headouts, particularly in the post-Covid recovery period,” said Linda Guo, partner at Glad Brook Capital.