Whenever you are planning to visit a different country, the first and the essential part of your journey is applying for a visa application. The application can be for a business trip or a tourist visa, but without a permit, you cannot fly to another country. This is a process that depends on the country to country; some offer visas on arrival, whereas some require a visa permit before you plan your travels.
The standard procedure of the visa approval is to visit the office to fill the form or fill the form online, but this can be a tiring process as for a first-time traveler, you might find it hard to figure out the form you want to fill. However, Akanksha Kukreja had some other plans as she decided to build a one-stop-shop for people traveling abroad- Visa2Fly.
The journey to Visa2Fly
Born and brought up in Delhi, Akanksha Kukreja completed her graduation from Ansal University, Gurgaon, by getting her B.Tech degree in computer science. An engineer by profession, her heart always inclined towards entrepreneurship, but she entered the corporate world and started working with Hitachi Consulting. Then she worked with Mobikwik, where she understood about the travel domain of the company, and during her time with the company, she made some excellent connections.
Many startups did not attack Visa as a problem, and that’s how he decided to enter this field, making it her breakthrough to the startup world. With a tech team, she decided to quit her job and get committed to Visa2Fly.
What is Visa2Fly?
Visa2Fly is building India’s first truly online visa application platform, which will be made available to the people as a site and an app, making the process hassle-free for the users. The priority of the startup is to maximize the success rate of visa approvals for their clients and minimize the problems related to visas.
The second offering by the startup that is under development is travel insurance. In some countries, it is mandatory to apply for travel insurance, whether its a tourist visa, travel visa, or business visa. They plan to offer this service on the same platform allowing the user to book for the travel insurance through Bajaj Allianz at low price points.
Challenges faced in the outset and collaboration by them
The initial difficulties faced by them was when they planned to integrate the three types of visa application processes which are online visas, visa application with documents only, and offline visa with biometrics/ visa interview. The different process had its own document needs and different visa type, which took some time to be added onto one single platform.
In conversation with TimesNext, Akanksha talks about their collaboration with Matrix, which provides travel sim cards to people traveling to a different country. She also tells about their partnership with Baja Allianz and Mobikwik for travel insurance and a secure payment gateway, respectively.
The first milestone, current growth, and the vision for the company
The first milestone, according to her, was when they managed to set up back end operations and integration with the SIM and insurance partners. Currently, they are starting their services in Delhi/NCR, and soon they will expand their operations to Bangalore and Mumbai. They are providing B2B and B2C services to the consumers where all the services will revolve around visas and travel.
With her hard work in building the startup, she wishes to provide the best services in all cities across India with Visa2Fly starting with metro cities as they plan to enter the Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities as well in the next few years.
