Search Aggregator Giant Ixigo: Venture on Investments

Key Highlights

Ixigo raised $18.5 (INR 130 crore) Million investment through SAIF Partners and MakeMyTrip

 $25 Million investment and more than 3 lakh transactions are made every month

 Ixigo is working on new innovative technology like artificial intelligence

Ixigo is one of India’s top online and mobile travel services and planning guide. Ixigo started in June 2006 by Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar. CEO Bajpai was born in Allahabad and graduated from IIT Kanpur in Electrical Engineering. Later he moved to France to work for a European travel technology company “Amadeus”.

The company aggregates and analyses instant travel knowledge, prices and availability of flights, trains, buses, cabs, hotels, packages, and destinations. After Amadeus, he started pursuing his business studies at INSEAD’s Asia campus Singapore. After coming back to India, Bajpai met his then classmate Kumar (Co-founder) and they both decided to start Ixigo, a travel search engine website.

In 2011, Ixigo raised $18.5 (INR 130 crore) Million investment through SAIF Partners and MakeMyTrip. By March 2017, Ixigo raised $15 Million (INR 105 crore) from Fosun Capital and Sequoia Capital. The Gurugram based company has a wide range of services and has over 100 million travellers. Ixigo’s tagline ‘Know & Go’, suggest users have some background information before you travel anywhere. Ixigo apps are also available in other transports as well, such as bus, train and flight booking. They provide ample information about the destination before booking itself. 

In 2015, multiple media reports stated that mobile phone maker Micromax had purchased an unspecified stake in Ixigo. Ixigo is also backed by online travel services provider MakeMyTrip and investment firm SAIF Partners.

In 2017, The Gurugram-based travel search platform had secured $15 Million (INR 105 crore) in Series B round of funding led by Sequoia Capital. Chinese investment Company FosunKinzon Capital Pte Ltd also was the part of the round. The deal is a mix of compulsorily convertible preference shares and equity shares which was finalized in March that year. The firm will use the raised funds towards improving its product capability, extension and marketing purposes, as stated in a report by Deal Street Asia.

In 2018, The travel market place had raised $75 million in its Series C funding. The investments were used to invest in tech and travel start-ups. The main aim of the fund-raising was towards the development and expansion of the company’s engineering team, the buildup of research and development, new products and customer acquisition. Bajpai claims the firm is been profitable at a unit level over the past 2 years. He also claimed that the company is aiming for metro and non-metro customers with various offerings.

$25 Million (INR 175 crore) investment and more than 3 lakh transactions are made every month. It is natural to not think of the difficulty and resistance that the founding team went through at the beginning. Throughout its journey, the travel search marketplace has faced many challenges, from its 2008 the economic disaster of to the Series A funding offer introverted few days before the deal got finalized.

Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar, launched a travel search website that assists more than 80 Million travellers, proving them details and offers from 25,000+ portals and offline partners too. To improve its service and customers experience, Ixigo is working on new innovative technology like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).

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SA Team

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