(Image Source: Entrackr)
There’s a moment most international travellers know too well. You’ve got vacation days lined up, a destination in mind, and then reality hits. You’re bouncing between seventeen different websites, cross-referencing flight prices, checking hotel reviews, hunting for restaurants that don’t disappoint, trying to figure out what local stuff is actually worth your time. By the time you’ve got everything sorted, you’re half exhausted before you even board the flight.
That’s exactly the problem Rimigo spotted, and now the Bengaluru-based startup is convinced that artificial intelligence can be the travel buddy everyone actually needs.
The Idea That Came From Frustration
Sahil Sharma, Shubham Chintalwar, and Aditya Shirole founded Rimigo in 2024 because they got tired of how broken international travel planning still is. These guys have backgrounds in travel and tech, so they knew exactly what was wrong. You tell an app where you want to go and what kind of trip you’re looking for, and boom, you get a full itinerary. Flights, places to stay, restaurants worth eating at, and activities that match your vibe. Everything’s there, personalized to what you actually want to do, not what some generic travel site thinks you should do.
The whole thing runs on AI and curated human insights. Think of it as having a really smart travel friend who knows the city, understands your taste, and has actually done the legwork of finding the good stuff.
Early Signs That This Could Work
The startup hasn’t even formally launched yet. They’re still in beta. And already they’ve organized over 120 vacations. Fifty of those trips are already complete, and people are actually coming back to use Rimigo again for their next vacations or telling their friends about it. That kind of word-of-mouth momentum matters when you’re just starting. People are willing to use your product because other people they know had a good experience.
In the travel tech world, that kind of organic user growth is golden. It means you’ve got something people actually find valuable, not just something that looks good on paper.
The Money’s Coming In
Back in April of this year, Rimigo closed a pre-seed funding round worth $550,000. The round was led by Reazon Capital from Japan and SGgrow Capital, but what’s interesting is the Indian angel investor lineup. S. Ramadorai, the former chief of TCS, backed it. So did Ravi Nigam from Tasty Bite, Shashank Deshpande of Pentathlon Ventures, and Ujjwal Jain who founded WealthDesk. Having people with that kind of experience and track record invest in your startup sends a signal to the market. These aren’t random money people betting on a hunch. These are guys who’ve built big businesses and know what works.
Rimigo’s saying the cash will go toward getting the product even better, hiring more people who know travel and technology, and basically building out the core team that’ll make this whole thing scale.
A Market That’s Ready
Here’s the thing about the travel market in India right now. The online travel business is already worth close to $20 billion and is expected to hit more than $31 billion by 2030. There’s real money being spent on travel, and most of it’s still happening through broken processes. People are still manually hunting for flights, then checking hotels, then googling restaurants. It’s inefficient. Rimigo thinks AI can change that completely.
They’re positioning themselves at a sweet spot too. They’re not trying to become Expedia or Booking. They’re going after the planning part, the part that actually matters to travellers. They want to be the thing that makes the whole travel journey feel coherent and personalized instead of like you’re assembling a thousand separate purchases.
What’s Next
The startup is now working on making the product even smoother and faster. They’re building the kind of infrastructure that can handle way more travellers than 120 people. They’re also thinking about how to expand beyond just international travel. The vision is bigger than that, but they’re not rushing. They’re going to get domestic travel right first, then expand.
For the travel tech world in India, Rimigo represents something important. It shows that there’s room for innovation even in areas where big global players already exist. If Rimigo can actually deliver on making travel planning simple and personalized, they could end up reshaping how Indian travellers book their vacations.
