Mumbai, December 12, 2015: Mobile travel search and marketplace, ixigo, is planning to raise $20 million by early next year to expand its user base and distribution.
Having raised $18 million already from investors such as Saif Partners, Make MyTrip and Micromax, it is now planning to add a fresh set of investors as enters new segments such as budget hotels, packages and cab services.
Alok Bajpai, CEO & Co-Founder, ixigo, said, “We are in talks with existing and new investors. There are plans to sign term sheets by early next year to raise an additional $20 million as we also plan to grow in the B2B space.”
Investors like Make My Trip have already dropped stake in the travel search portal from 19.9 per cent to 15 per cent with new investors like Micromax which invested into the company in June this year.
“We did raise about $18 million in 2011 with the exit of our angel investors with Saif Partners picking up 40 per cent stake along with Make My Trip whose stake has come down to 15 per cent as of now,’’ said Bajpai.
App-based distribution
Ixigo is now planning an app-based distribution model through Micromax with a pre-embedded app on its new model of phones. “When Micromax launches its new phones, there will be a pre-embedded app that will be powered with our brand. Micromax will serve as a distribution partner for us. Even in future we will create an app-based distribution model through third party apps to increase the distribution base,’’ he added.
Google estimates the online hotel booking market in India at $1.8 billion by 2016, up from $0.8 billion in 2014. A large part of this growth will be driven by the growth of smartphones in Tier 2 and -3 cities.
Focusing on the budget segment, ixigo has recently created a new segment under ‘Super Value Hotels’ to drive traffic from the smaller cites. “The majority of the Indian middle class travels by train and stays in the ₹800-1,200 segment. Besides, most of the lower middle-class is from Tier-3 & -4 from where the growth is expected in the much ignored budget segment. Of the 27,000 hotels listed on our site, 14,000 are in the budget space,’’ he said.
ixigo’s ‘super value hotels’ compares deals across branded budget hotel providers such as Oyo rooms, Wudstay, Zo Rooms, Vista Rooms as well as independent hotels.-BusinessLine
Corporate Comm India(CCI Newswire) .
