Treebo elevates Mayank Khandelwal to co-founder of SaaS unit, re-hires 65 people

Bengaluru based budget hotels aggregator Treebo has strengthened its top leadership team and re-hired some of the staff it had laid off last year due to the pandemic, as the hospitality industry sees early rebound signs. 

Mayank Khandelwal, who was in charge of engineering at Treebo, has been elevated to senior vice president and co-founder of its SaaS unit, Hotel Superhero. 

Launched last year, Hotel Superhero is an integrated hotel management software for hospitality companies and standalone hotels. It includes features such as booking management, rate planning, inventory and channel management, customer profiles, finance modules and reporting. 

Additionally, the company appointed Akhil Gupta, who led Treebo’s western region operations, as vice president and head of operations and guest experience. Hardik Goyal, who led the third-party online sales channels, has been elevated to vice president and head of B2C sales, the company said in a statement. 

“While the hospitality industry is currently in near shutdown mode due to COVID-19, we expect to see a major uptick in business on the other side of the pandemic. Also, we are seeing a massive opportunity for our SaaS business -- Hotel Superhero -- and continue to invest in it aggressively. We want to be ready for the bounce back in business with a strong leadership team and appropriate resourcing in the organization,” Treebo co-founder Sidharth Gupta said. 

Treebo also said it had recruited back 65 of its former colleagues, who had exited as part of the paid voluntary resignation scheme (PVRS) it had introduced in April last year to cope with the tough business climate in the travel industry amid the pandemic. The Bengaluru-based company had cut jobs across functions including sales, business development, operations, human resources and finance. 

“As business returned during the Nov-Feb period before the onset of the second wave, we were able to re-hire 65 of these past colleagues. They continue to be with us today and we are confident that they will help us make the most of the recovery we expect to see in the industry in a few months,” Gupta said. 

Treebo was founded in 2015 by Gupta, Rahul Chaudhary and Kadam Jeet Jain.  The budget hotels aggregator manages a network of over 500 hotels across more than 100 cities under its brand.  Treebo competes with SoftBank backed OYO, MakeMyTrip, ClearTrip, Yatra and FabHotels in the segment. 

The company has raised a number of small-ticket funding rounds since the onset of the pandemic. Its last known round was in October 2020 when it secured $6 million from existing investors including Matrix Partners India, Elevation Capital, Ward Ferry, and Bertelsmann India Investments.   

The same month, Deepak Parayanken, managing director of Mozambique Holdings, led a $1.35 million round into the firm along with several other angels.