Micromax Informatics Limited, has made a strategic investment in ixigo, a mobile travel search & marketplace. ixigo helps Indian travellers plan their trips, find the best train & bus services, book cheapest flights, cabs, hotels and more.
ixigo aims to provide relevant travel services to the next 300Mn smartphone users, and has recently entered the budget hotels, packages & cabs segments. It plans to use this investment for expanding its product & technology team and to add 25,000 small and mid-sized travel service providers to its marketplace offering, making ixigo the most comprehensive platform for comparing and buying travel services on mobile.
Commenting on the investment, Rahul Sharma, Co-founder, Micromax Informatics said, “We look forward to working closely with them to build on-demand and one-click travel experiences for Micromax consumers. We will be announcing more such partnerships over the next few months to accelerate our journey into services.”
Micromax had announced last month that it will be making investments of $0.5-20Mn in over 20 startups in the coming year. For this objective, Micromax has also set up an M&A team which has been actively sourcing and working with startups across major technology markets such as Silicon Valley, Europe, Israel and India to bring in the best products and capabilities.
Aloke Bajpai, CEO & co-founder, ixigo said “This partnership with Micromax, the leading smartphone OEM in India, will strengthen our market leadership in mobile travel services for middle class users. We expect to quadruple our mobile user-base in the next 12 months.”
Gurgaon-based ixigo was launched by Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar in 2007. ixigo aggregates and compares real-time travel information, prices & availability for flights, trains, buses, cabs, hotels, packages & destinations. Ixigo’s mission is to simplify the lives of travellers by building apps that make their travel search and planning hassle-free. ixigo is presently connecting over 60Mn travellers with content & deals from over 25,000 online & offline travel & hospitality businesses. Other investors of ixigo include SAIF Partners & MakeMyTrip.
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