Himachal Pradesh, India, March 06, 2023: ParaBooking, an online paragliding booking portal from FlutterBuy Ecom Ventures has today announced seed funding of INR 50 lakhs under the Him Startup Yojna of the Department of Industries, Himachal Pradesh. Creating history, this is the first time ever that a Himachal Pradesh-based tech startup has developed sophisticated SaaS-based tools that can scale across the nation to bring safety and regulations in the adventure sports industry.
The company has undergone incubation at IIT Mandi Catalyst in Himachal Pradesh and fine-tuned its technology and business model from world-class mentors. ParaBooking operates through a two-pronged model for generating revenues: adventure sport (paragliding) and SaaS tools for adventure tourism operators/agencies across the nation. Currently an 8-member team, ParaBooking looks forward to utilizing the funds to double down on their technology and go to market.
Founded by Ankush Rana, Deepak Abrol, Sohail Lalani, and Vikram Thakur in 2021, ParaBooking.com is an online portal for customers to book paragliding flights in some of the major destinations across India like Bir-Billing, Dharamshala, and Manali. One of the main intentions to start ParaBooking is to bring in safety and regulations in the adventure tourism industry in India. Along with the website to book paragliding flights, ParaBooking additionally offers an Application for tourism operators to digitize and automate their operations which are sold on a SaaS model.
Over the 18 months of operations, ParaBooking has facilitated more than 5,000 flights across India and is fast growing. The company is also venturing into trekking and adventure sports like kayaking. Adventure sports in India has massive potential but the critical factor of safety remains a huge concern among the masses, this is an area where FlutterBuy plans to thrive as a venture. Pertaining to paragliding- several parameters need to be inspected such as the equipment’s airworthiness, the pilot’s skill level, knowledge of the weather conditions, terrain awareness, and more, which are currently not considered. This area of concern was the critical reason that led to the Government of Himachal Pradesh investing in organisations providing safe adventure tourism experiences.
“The safety of travellers visiting our state will remain a priority, and towards this goal we will focus on enabling ventures that are catering to the needs of the safe adventure sports in the state. It will also help establish an ecosystem for Startups and a conducive environment to bring in investments in HImachal Pradesh” says Sh. Rakesh Prajapati (IAS) Director, HP Industries.