Plan Your Ultimate Wildlife Holidays with WildTrails

We all remember Farhan Qureshi, the character from 3 idiots, and how his true passion was not engineering but wildlife photography. A similar passion is shared by Manjunath Gowda and Geeta Gouri, the founders of 'WildTrails' which offers Wildlife Sightings based ratings that helps Wildlife travelers immensely. They collect all the sightings of National Parks, crunch that data and show metrics which is a great insight for wildlife travelers.

WildTrails is like the Swiggy of wildlife. They provide end to end hassle free Wildlife packages and are the only ones to have Sightings Info predictive metric and vast network of expert trackers. Their platform is purely unique and the journey is as beautiful as national parks and reserves that they capture.

About WildTrails and how it works
Founders of WildTrails
How was WildTrails Started
WildTrails - Name and Logo
WildTrails - Business Model
WildTrails - User Acquisition
WildTrails - Startup Challenges
WildTrails - Competitors
WildTrails - Advisors and Mentors
WildTrails - Funding
WildTrails - Future Plans

About WildTrails and How it Works

WildTrails is the only company which is digitizing the middlemen in the wildlife tourism industry and is bringing an aggregator in the Wildlife Tourism. WildTrails' USP is that it brings sightings Info in Depth including data analysis. By using AI/ML algorithms on the vast data they have on wildlife sightseeing,  WildTrails has come up with a predictive metric called Sighting Index. This Sighting Index gives the travelers an idea about what animals they can expect to see when they visit a certain wildlife sanctuary. This Sighting Index is what gives WildTrails a clear moat and an entry barrier for others to enter.

Also expert tracker matters a lot in wildlife tourism and WildTrails is the only company with an extensive trackers network across most Indian national parks and tiger reserves .

Besides, WildTrails takes care of all the hassles of planning your wildlife trip. Booking flight tickets and wildlife resorts, pick up and drop from the local airport, booking local experiences and support from experts on chat, WildTrails ensure that you have a great trip.

WildTrails  is present over the internet and also available on iOS/Android App.

Currently Wildlife tourism is in stone age era as far as usage of technology is concerned and we are about to change that - says Manjunath.

About the Wildlife Tourism Sector

There are 104 national parks and 500 plus wildlife sanctuaries in India. The number of travelers in wildlife tourism sector is also increasing. As per a recent study by conservation India, number of tourists visiting national parks has increased by 15%. Again, Africa, where WildTrails provides its services is world's number one destination for safaris. Millions of tourists visit Africa every year especially to view wildebeest migrations in Kenya's Maasai Mara and Tanzania's Serengeti National Park.

Founders of WildTrails and team

Manjunath Gowda and Geeta Gouri are the founders of WildTrails.

Manjunath Gowda is the CEO & CTO at WildTrails. Manjunath completed his BE in Computer Science and MS in Computer Science from Oregon State University. Manjunath is a serial entrepreneur. Apart from WildTrails, Manjunath is also co-founded startups like Appvatar, Bristol, S7 Software and i7 networks. Bristol, which was a joint venture with a US based company, was acquired by HP in 2003 and S7 Software was acquired by Bluecoat, a valley company in 2010.

Geeta Gouri handles market strategy, partnerships & business development at WildTrails. Geeta graduated in Computer Science. She started work with S7 Software and  later worked for GetLeads startup and i7 networks before starting up WildTrails. WildTrails' Current team size is of 11 people. The founders of WildTrails worked together on S7 Software and also on  i7 networks and both were hardcore wildlifers and then they decided to do something in the area of their passion.

How was WildTrails Started

Manjunath was always a passionate wildlifer and had been going to Kabini for last 2 decades. He noticed that at Kabini, they used to write sightings info on a white board. Manjunath however even after so many trips to Kabini, never saw a tiger and collected these sightings info from guides and created a pattern. Following that pattern actually helped  Manjunath spot a tiger, and that was the eureka moment for him.

Manjunath then applied the pattern in what he called AI/Ml algorithms and created a predictive analysis which helps wildlife tourists to plan their wildlife journey better and effectively.

Manjunath had an amazing product but they didn’t know how to monetize the product. Soon, they realized that the data they have is extremely helpful to organize wildlife trips and hence they jumped into it and now make money that way. WildTrails aims to provide one stop for all Wildlife Tourism across the globe and do it for India first.

WildTrails - Name and Logo

Manjunath and Geeta were completely focused into Wildlife Tourism and WildTrails seemed a natural name. And as far as logo is considered, they were clear about Tiger Pugmark and that it looks really cool.

WildTrails - Business Model and Revenue Model

WildTrails show sightings and Sighting Index which attracts wildlifers to their platform and they book their next wildlife package with WildTrails and they organize the transport, right safari mode, right safari zone, right park and the right resort that is close to this safari zone and put the right expert tracker. So they sell Wildlife Packages. WildTrails'  revenue comes from the commissions they get  for the packages they sell. Their average ticket size is 75K.

WildTrails - User Acquisition

WildTrails team is not only very good in marketing as well as in technology, but the members are also passionate wildlifers – that’s their strength and DNA. Social media marketing and doing great SEO is what helped them. Facebook, Instagram and Google SEO worked the best for them.

The main focus was on relevant content creation and they come on first page for many keywords. Their Sightings Info and Predictive analysis is becoming almost defacto standard for Indian wildlife tourism. Their research on Black Panther Sigthings Prediction is very famous and published in many articles.

WildTrails - Startup Challenges

WildTrails got the most popular Sightings Info and Predictive Metric – Sighting Index – all sorted out, but biggest issue was how to monetize this and they did several different ways but none stood or worked and finally the packages worked.

We are now sort of Swiggy of Wildlife. We provide end to end hassle free Wildlife packages and we are the only one to have Sightings Info predictive metric and vast network of expert trackers - Manjunath

WildTrails - Competitors

WildTrails are specialists in wildlife tours. WildTrails is the only one which is bringing an aggregator in the Wildlife Tourism. The sighting index they provide and the extensive network of expert trackers associated with them gives them a clear advantage over any other company selling wildlife packages.

WildTrails - Advisors and Mentors

Wildtrails' advisors and mentors include Sharad Sharma of iSpirt and Sanjay Anandaram from Startup Advisor.

WildTrails - Funding

WildTrails has received total funding of around 1.2 crore from various angel investors.

WildTrails - Future Plans

The run rate for WildTrails has been 3 crores for the current financial year. The company is breaking even for now as all profits  are diverted into R&D of their product. Today, WildTrails serves more than 50 groups every month. WildTrails' revenue in year 1 was $75K, in year 2 it was $100K, and so in year 3 they are expecting $500K.

Their future plans include getting into Africa full way in 2020 and South America for 2021.