Ixigo buys train booking firm Confirmtkt to boost presence in small towns

Travel portal Ixigo has acquired Bengaluru-based Comfirmtkt, an internet train discovery and booking platform for an undisclosed quantity in a cash-plus-stock deal.

As a part of the deal, Ixigo founders Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar will probably be becoming a member of the board of Confirmtkt and current buyers together with Venture Catalysts will exit the corporate. Both firms will proceed to run independently, Ixigo mentioned in an announcement. The deal will assist the group consolidate its presence in tier 2, 3 and 4 markets, it added.

Both Ixigo and Confirmtkt are official B2C premium ticketing companions with IRCTC for on-line train reservations in India.

“Confirmtkt has built a company with a great product-market fit and a focus on train-related use-cases. By leveraging our combined user base, resources, and tech expertise we will be able to enhance the experience of millions of train travellers in India every day.” mentioned Ixigo founders Bajpai and Kumar. “The mixed entity can have 35 million month-to-month lively customers, and our endeavour in the approaching yr will probably be to drive sooner progress and deeper penetration in the ‘Next Billion Users’ phase.”

Started in 2015, Confirmtkt predicts the affirmation possibilities of a waitlisted ticket for travellers, aside from serving to customers to monitor the standing of train in actual time, coach positions, train schedule adjustments, and different train choices. It additionally permits direct booking of train, bus, and air tickets by means of its cell app.
The firm clocked an working revenue of Rs 1.54 crore on revenues of Rs 21.4 crore in FY20-21.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, over 25 million individuals in India travelled by train day by day, making this an $8-billion market. The resumption of train providers and rest of lockdown norms have led to a fast restoration of reserved train ticketing to close to pre-Covid ranges, Ixigo mentioned in an announcement.

“We remain committed towards our joint vision of serving the underserved market segment and to become the first transactional touchpoint for millions of Indian travellers,” mentioned Confirmtkt founders Dinesh Kumar Kotha and Sripad Vaidya.

Ixigo, which started as a journey metasearch engine in 2007, turned a full-fledged online travel booking web site final yr.

It at present affords train, flight and bus bookings, utilizing synthetic intelligence for deal discovery, personalised suggestions, airfare predictions and alerts, train delay info, and PNR affirmation predictions. In FY20-21 the corporate had reported an EBITDA lack of Rs 5.4 crore on web revenues of Rs 153 crore, Bajpai wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.