Adani Group To Acquire Railway Ticketing Startup Trainman

Adani Enterprises on Friday (June 16) said that its wholly-owned subsidiary Adani Digital Labs Private Ltd has signed an agreement to acquire railway ticketing startup Trainman. 

“… we would like to inform you that Adani Digital Labs… has signed a share purchase agreement in relation to its proposed acquisition of 100% stake in Stark Enterprises… also known as Trainman, an online train booking and information platform,” the company said in a regulatory filing with the exchanges.

However, the financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Trainman was reportedly last pegged at INR 80 Cr. It last raised a seed funding of $1 Mn in July last year.

Founded in 2016 by Vineet Chirania and Karan Kumar, Trainman is an online train

booking and information platform. It counts names such as Goodwater Capital and Ivy Growth Associates as its investors. Trainman directly competes with the likes of Confirmtkt, which was acquired by ixigo in 2021.

The move is likely a part of Adani Group’s strategy to shore up its ticketing play. The conglomerate has undertaken a slew of acquisitions in the past two years across sectors to further strengthen its travel arm.

In December 2022, the conglomerate launched the flight ticket and cab booking platform, Adani One. In October 2021, it also picked a minority stake, reportedly 20%, in Flipkart-owned online travel aggregator ClearTrip.  

It was also reported late last year that the Adani Group was mulling investing in a fleet of passenger vehicles to list on the ride-hailing platform, Uber. 

Back then, it was said that the Ahmedabad-based company would deploy the vehicles in cities where it operates airports.

With multiple aspects in play, the conglomerate could also be looking at building a superapp, dedicated solely to travellers. The Group could also leverage its existing resource base in operating airports to further fuel its ambition of eyeing a big chunk of the Indian travel space. 

It is pertinent to note that Trainman logged losses in excess of INR 1.2 Cr in the financial year 2021-22 (FY22), up 6X from FY21. It also saw its revenue double to INR 2.5 Cr during FY22.

While there is no clarity on what prompted the acquisition, the acquisition comes amid the ongoing funding winter that has left many startups fund-starved, and with no other option but to either bag funding or merge with a larger entity. 

Last year saw as many as 240 M&As, and the trend only seems to be intensifying this year. Recently,  VLCC announced its acquisition of Ustraa. This was followed closely by fintech startup CredFlow acquiring Y Combinator-backed business management startup TechBiz. 

With the numbers expected to worsen, it remains to be seen what lies in store for the Indian startup ecosystem. As of now, Adani Group appears to be planning a disruption in the travel space with Trainman by its side.