Bengaluru-headquartered travel-fintech startup Scapia has raised $63 million in a fresh round of funding led by General Catalyst and also saw participation of existing investors, Peak XV Partners and Z47.
Scapia said it will utilise this fresh funding towards strengthening its brand and artificial intelligence led initiatives. Besides, this will also be utilised for hiring AI talent across functions of engineering, product, data sciences and design.
Scapia was founded in January 2022 by former Flipkart executive Anil Goteti. It offers co-branded credit cards in partnership with Federal Bank and BOBCARD.
"Today, Scapia is a comprehensive travel ecosystem powered by a financial product at its core, designed for a generation of Indians that treats travel as a way of life. This round will help us strengthen our product suite further, bring more value to our customers through more offerings, scale the brand and bring in the best talent as we double down on building an AI-first culture and product approach," Scapia founder & CEO Anil Goteti said.
Scapia noted that flight bookings on the platform have grown 5-6x and stays by 8x, compared to last year, with Tier-II and III cities driving a growing share of bookings.
On the investment into Scapia, Neeraj Arora, CEO India & MENA at General Catalyst, noted that the 7x growth in customer base of Scapia last year and depth of products it has built gave them the confidence to invest in this startup.
"India's next wave of great consumer companies will be built around behaviors that are genuinely new - not just digital versions of what came before. Scapia understood early that a generation of Indians for whom travel is a baseline expectation, not an aspiration, needed a financial product designed around that identity," Arora remarked.
Scapia has also launched a dual-network co-branded credit card spanning both Visa and RuPay. Over the last six months, it has introduced a series of new products and features including Scapia Pay, a rewards-first UPI experience, add-on credit cards, credit card bill payments across all banks via BBPS, the Scapia Store, Scapia Experiences and more.
"As consumer experiences turn AI-native, we are convinced Scapia will earn its place as a household name for the modern Indian traveller," Vikram Vaidyanathan, Managing Director, Z47, said.